THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROVED 
TO BE CORRUPT ADDITIONS TO THE WORD OF GOD. 



ARGUMENTS OF ROMANISTS 



INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH AND THE TESTIMONY 
OF THE FATHERS IN BEHALF OF THE APOCRYPHA, 



DISCUSSED AND REPUTED. 



BY 

JA_MES H. TJHORNWELL, 

PROCESSOR. 03" SACKED LITERATURE AND THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 



NEW-YORK : 

LEAVITT,TROW & COMPANY, 

ROBERT CARTER. BOSTON, CHARLES TAPPAN. — PHILADELPHIA, 

PERKINS & PURVE3. — -BALTIMORE, D. OWEN & SON. 

CHARLESTON, S. HART, SENIOR, D. W. HARRISON. 
— COLUMBIA, S. WEIR, MC CARTER & ALLEN. 

1845. 






Entered, according to Act ot Congress, in the year 1844, 

By LEAVITT, TROW, & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New- York. 









7 



DBDTCATIOH 



REV. ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE, D. D., 

AN ORNAMENT TO HIS CHURCH, 

AND A 

BLESSING TO HIS COUNTRY, 
A STRANGER TO EVERY OTHER FEAR BUT THE FEAR OF GOD. 

THE BOLD DEFENDER AND UNTIRING ADVOCATE 

OP 

SmttJ, SLtoerts, an* 3&eUflfon, 
THIS BOOK, 

Which owes its existence to his instrumentality, 
IS now affectionately inscbibed by 

THE AUTHOR, 



PREFACE. 

The history of the present publication is soon told. Scne 
time in the year 1841 I wrote, at the special request of a 
friend in Baltimore, Rev. Dr. Breckenridge, a short essay on 
the claims of the Apocrypha to Divine Inspiration. This was 
printed anonymously in the Baltimore Visiter, as No. V. of a 
series of articles furnished by Protestants, in a controversy 
then pending with the domestic chaplains of the Archbishop 
of Baltimore. From the Visiter it was copied into the Spirit 
of the Nineteenth Century, some time during 1842. From the 
Spirit of the Nineteenth Century it was transferred, by the 
editor of the Southern Chronicle, a valuable newspaper pub- 
lished in this place, to his own columns, and without consult- 
ing me, or in any way apprising me of his design, he took the 
liberty, having ascertained that I was the author, to append 
my name to it. Seeing it printed under my name, and, as he 
might naturally suppose, by my authority, Dr. Lynch, a Ro- 
man Catholic Priest of Charleston, of reputed cleverness and 
learning, no doubt regarded it as an indirect challenge to the 
friends of Rome to vindicate their Mistress from the severe 
charges which were brought against her. He accordingly ad- 
dressed to me a series of letters, which the members of his 
own sect pronounced to be very able, and to which the follow- 
ing dissertations (for though in the form of letters they are 
really essays) are a reply. The presumption is that the full 
strength of the Papal cause was exhibited by its champion ; 
and that the reader may be able to judge for himself of the 
security of the basis on which the inspiration of the Apocrypha 
is made to depend, I have given the substance of Dr. Lynch's 
articles in the Appendix. This work, consequently, presents 



PREFACE. 



&. 

an unusually full discussion of the whole subject connected 
with these books. I have insisted largely upon the dogma of 
infallibility — more largely, perhaps, than many of my readers 
may think to be consistent with the general design of my per- 
formance — because I regard this as the prop and bulwark of 
all the abominations of the Papacy. It is the stronghold, or 
rather, as Robert Hall [expresses it, " the corner-stone of the 
whole system of Popery — the centre of union amidst all the 
animosities and disputes which may subsist on minor subjects ; 
and the proper definition of a Catholic is, one who professes 
to maintain the absolute infallibility of a certain community 
styling itself the Church." 

It is not for me to commend my own production, neither 
shall I seek to soften the asperity of criticism by plaintive 
apologies or humble confessions. In justice, however, I may 
state that the following pages were composed in the midst of 
manifold afflictions — some of the letters were written in the 
chamber of the sick and by the bed of the dying, and all were 
thrown off under a pressure of duty which left no leisure for 
the task but the hours which were stolen from the demands of 
nature. If, under circumstances so well fitted to chasten the 
spirit and to modify the temper, I could really harbor the ma- 
lignity and bitterness which, in certain quarters, have been 
violently charged upon me, I must carry in my bosom the 
heart of a demon and not of a man. " And here will I make 
an end. If I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is 
that which I desired ; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that 
which I could attain unto." 

J. H. Thornwell. 

Columbia, S. C, July 12, 1844. 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LETTER I. 
Severity of rebuke necessary in reproving error. — Mistaken notions of charity exposed. 
— The real character of Popery — shown to be Anti-Christian and dangerous — no bet- 
ter than Mahometanism. — The decree of the Council of Trent in reference to the 
Apocrypha, 9 

LETTER II. 
Dr. Lynch's great argument in proof of the inspiration of the Apocrypha shown to be 
ambiguous. — The testimony of the Papacy, on moral grounds, entitled to no consid- 
eration, 26 

LETTER III. 
Examination of the argument from the necessity of the case in favor of some infallible 

tribunal, shown to be presumptuous and weak, 36 

LETTER IV. 
It is just as easy to prove the Inspiration of the Scriptures as the Infallibility of any 

Church, .v. 57 

LETTER V, 
Historical difficulties in the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, 72 

LETTER VI. 
The doctrine of Papal Infallibility the Parent of Skepticism,. 89 

LETTER VII. 

Papal Infallibility shown to be conducive to licentiousness and immorality, 105 

LETTER VIII. 
Papal Infallibility proved to be the patron of Superstition and Will-worship, 116 

LETTER IX. 
Papal Infallibility proved to be unfriendly to civil government,.... 143 

LETTER X. 
Apocrypha not quoted in the New Testament, 162 

LETTER XL 

Exclusion of the Apocrypha from the Jewish canon. — Definition of the term canon ; 
account of the manner in which it was formed. — The evidence necessary to make 
a book canonical. — The distinetion between not receiving and rejecting a book shown 
to be false 175 

LETTER XII. 

Our Saviour approved the Jewish canon and treated it as complete. Sadducees vindi- 
cated from the charge of rejecting all the Old Testament but the Pentateuch. The 
real point which Papists must prove, in order to establish the inspiration of the 
Apocrypha, 1 89 



9 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

! ETTER XIII. 
Mi Apocrypha by the Jews Faith of the Primitive Church not a standard 
tous 206 

LETTER XIV. 

The existence of the Apocrypha in ancient versions of the Scriptures, no proof of inspi- 
ration. — Not quoted by the Apostolic Fathers, 215 

LETTER XV. 

The application of such expressions as 'Scripture/ 'Divine Scripture,' by ancient 

writers to thr Apocrypha, no proof of inspiration, 231 

LETTER XVI. 
lination of testimonies, 246 

LETTER XVII. 
estimony of the writers of the third century considered — Cyprian, Hippolytus, Apos- 
tolic Constitutions, 266 

LETTER XVIII. 
if the Fourth Century considered. — ouncil of Nice. — Councils of Hippo 
id ' irth tge. — Testimony of Augustine — Ephrem the Syrian — Basil — Chrysostom — 
br oa -,.'. 277 

LETTER XIX. 
timony of the Primitive Church— The Canons of Melito, Oiigen, Athan- 

il Gregory Naz., Ferome, Ruffiuus, Council of Laodicea 310 

« d i x, . 339 



ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE APOCRYPHA 
DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 



LETTER I. 



Severity of rebuke necessary in reproving error. — Mistaken notions of charity exposed. — Tho 
real character of Popery — shown to be Anti-Christian and dangerous — no better than Ma- 
hometanism: — The decree of the Council of Trent in reference to the Apocrypha. 

Sir : — If you had been content with simply writing a review 
of my article on the Apocrypha, without alluding to me in any 
other way than as its author, I should not, perhaps, have troubled 
you with any notice of your strictures, But you have chosen 
the form of a personal address ; and though the rules of courtesy 
do not require that anonymous letters should be answered, yet I 
find that your epistles are generally regarded as a challenge to 
discuss, through the public press, the peculiar and distinctive 
principles of the sect to which you belong. Such a challenge 
I cannot decline. Taught in the school of that illustrious phi- 
losopher who drew the first constitution of this State, I profess 
to be a lover of truth, and especially of the truth of God; and as 
I am satisfied that it has nothing to apprehend from the assaults 
of error, so long as a country is permitted to enjoy that " capi- 
tal advantage of an enlightened people, the liberty of discussing 
every subject which can fall within the compass of the human 
mind," (a liberty, as you well know, possessed by the citizens of 
no Papal State,) I cannot bring myself to dread the results of a 
controversy conducted even in the spirit which you ascribe to 
me. 

If, sir, my sensibilities were as easily wounded as your own, 
I too might take offence at the asperity of temper which you 
have, indeed, attempted to conceal by a veil of affected polite- 
ness, but which, in spite of your caution, has more than once 

2 



10 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

been discovered through the flimsy disguise. But, sir, the spirit 
of your letter is a matter of very little consequence to me. 

If the moderation and courtesy of the Papal priesthood were 
not so exclusively confined to Protestant countries, where they 
are a lean and beggarly minority, there would be less reason for 
ascribing their politeness to the dictates of craft instead of the 
impulses of a generous mind. It is certainly singular that Pa- 
pists among us should make such violent pretensions to fastidi- 
ousness of taste when the style of their Royal Masters — if the 
example of the Popes is of value — stands pre-eminent in letters 
for coarseness, vulgarity, ribaldry and abuse. Dogs, wolves, 
foxes and adders, imprecations of wrath and the most horrible 
anathemas, dance through their Bulls, "in all the mazes of met- 
aphorical confusion." If these models of Papal refinement are 
not observed in a Protestant State, men will be apt to reflect that 
an Order exists among you whose secret instructions have re- 
duced fraud to a system, and lying to an art. How you, sir, 
without " compunctious visitings of conscience," could magnify 
breaches of " the rules of courtesy" on the part of Protestants 
towards the adherents of the Papal communion, into serious 
evils which often required you " to draw on your patience," is 
to me a matter of profound astonishment. # Standing as you do 

* " Permit me to take this occasion of expressing once for all my regret at 
finding an essay from you so plentifully interspersed with the vulgar epithets, 
Papist, Romanist, and such manifestations of ill feeling as the expressions, vas- 
sals of Rome, and captives to the car of Rome, the assertion that our " credu- 
lity is enormous," and your mocking language concerning the awful mystery of 
transubstantiation, and the Church with which even in quotations I am unwil- 
ling to sully my pen. Believe me, reverend sir, such invectives contain no 
argument. They are unbecoming the subject, and I may presume to add, the 
dignified station you occupy. Your essay would have lost none of its weight, 
and to Catholics would have been infinitely less revolting, had they been omitted. 
Catholics are neither outcasts from society, nor devoid of feeling ; they are nei- 
ther insensible to, nor think they deserve, such words of opprobrium. It is true 
we have often to draw on our patience, for the rules of courtesy are frequently 
violated in our regard. Still it is painful to see a Professor descending from 
calm, gentlemanly and enlightened argument, to mingle with the crowd of those 
whose weapons are misrepresentations and abuse. I will not recur to this 
disagreeable topic, but will endeavor to write as if your arguments were unac- 
companied by what Catholics must consider as insults." — A. P. F. Letter I. 



APOCRYPIIA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 11 

among the children of the Huguenots, whose fathers tested the 
liberality of Rome, and signalized their own heroic fortitude at 
the stake, the gibbet, and the wheel, were you not ashamed to 
complain of " trifles light as air/' mere " paper bullets of the 
brain, " while the blood of a thousand martyrs was crying to 
heaven against you ? Two centuries have not yet elapsed since 
the exiles of Languedoc found an asylum in this State. Who 
could have dreamed that, in so short a time, those who had pur- 
sued them with unrelenting fury at home, should have been 
found among their descendants, whining in deceitful strains 
about charity and politeness? They who, in every country 
where their pretended spiritual dominion has been supported by 
the props of secular authority, have robbed, murdered and plun- 
dered all who have been guilty of the only crimes which Rome 
cannot tolerate — freedom of thought and obedience to God — 
are horribly persecuted if they are not treated with the smooth 
hypocrisy of courtly address ! Did you feel constrained, sir, 
in the city of Charleston, where the recollection of the past can- 
not have perished, where the touching story of Judith Manigault 
must always be remembered, to make the formal declaration 
that "Catholics (meaning Papists) are not devoid of feeling ?" 
Were you afraid that the delight which you formerly took in sun- 
dering the tenderest ties of nature, tearing children from their 
parents, and husbands from their wives, and above all your keen 
relish for Protestant blood, coupled with the notorious fact that 
you have renounced your reason and surrendered the exercise of 
private judgment, might otherwise have created a shrewd suspi- 
cion that you possessed the nobler elements of humanity in no 
marked proportions 1 But I am glad to learn that you are neither 
" outcasts from society nor devoid of feeling ;" and I shall en- 
deavor to treat you in the course of this controversy as men that 
have " discourse of reason," though I plainly foresee, that your 
punctilious regard to "the rules of courtesy" will lead you to 
condemn my severity of spirit. It is a precious truth that my 
judgment is not with man. To employ soft and honeyed phrases 
in discussing questions of everlasting importance — to deal with 
errors that strike at the foundation of all human hope, as if they 
were harmless and venial mistakes — to bless where God curses, 



12 ROMANIST ARGUxMENTS FOR THE 

and to make apologies where God requires us to hate, though it 
may be the aptest method of securing popular applause in a so- 
phistical age, is cruelty to man and treachery to heaven. Those 
who, on such subjects, attach more importance to the " rules of 
courtesy" than the measures of truth, do not defend, but betray 
the citadel into the hands of its enemies. Judas kissed his 
Master, but it was only to mark him out for destruction ; the 
Roman soldiers saluted Jesus — Hail King of the Jews ! but it 
was in grim and insulting mockery. Charity for the persons 
of men, however corrupt or desperately wicked, is a Christian 
virtue. I have yet to learn that opinions and doctrines fall within 
its province. On the contrary, I apprehend that our love to the 
souls of men will be the exact measure of our zeal in exposing 
the dangers in which they are ensnared.* It is only among those 
who hardly admit the existence of such a thing as truth — who 
look upon all doctrines as equally involved in uncertainty and 
doubt — among skeptics, sophists, and calculators, that a gene- 
rous zeal is likely to be denounced as bigotry, a holy fervency 
of style mistaken for the inspiration of malice, and the dreary 
indifference of Pyrrhonism confounded with true liberality. — 
Such men would have condemned Paul for his withering rebuke 
to Elymas the Sorcerer, and Jesus Christ for his stern denuncia- 
tions of the Scribes and Pharisees. Surely if there be any sub- 
ject which requires pungency of language and severity of rebuke, 
it is the " uncasing of a grand imposture;" if there be any pro- 

* " We all know/' says Milton, in a passage which I shall partially quote, 
" that in private or personal injuries, yea, in public suffering for the cause of 
Christ, his rule and example teaches us to be so far from a readiness to speak 
evil, as not to answer the reviler in his language, though never so much pro- 
voked ; yet in the detecting and convincing of any notorious enemy to truth 
and his country's peace, I suppose, and more than suppose, it will be nothing dis- 
agreeing from Christian meekness to handle such an one in a rougher accent, 
and to send home his haughtiness well bespurted with his own holy water. 
Nor to do this are we unauthorized either from the moral precept of Solomon, 
to answer him thereafter that prides himself in his folly ; nor from the example 
of Christ and all his followers in all ages, who, in the refuting of those that re- 
sisted sound doctrine and by subtle dissimulations corrupted the minds of men, 
have wrought up their zealous souls into such vehemencies as nothing could be 
more killingly spoken." — Animadversions upon the Demonst. Def. Pref, 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 12 

per object of indignation and scorn, " it is a false prophet taken 
in the greatest, dearest, and most dangerous cheat — the cheat of 
souls." 

If I know my own heart, I am so far from entertaining vin- 
dictive feelings to the persons of Papists, thai I sincerely deplore 
their blindness, and would as cheerfully accord to them as any 
other citizens, who have no special claims upon me, the hospi- 
talities of life. It is only in the solemn matters of religion, that 
an impassable gulf is betwixt us. You apply, it is true, to the 
Papal community, throughout your letters, (I have three of them 
now before me,) the title of the Catholic Church; and perhaps 
one ground of the offence that I have given is to be found in the 
fact that I have not acknowledged, even indirectly, your arrogant 
pretensions. Sir, I cannot do it until I am prepared with you to 
make the word of God of none effect by vain and impious tradi- 
tions, and to belie the records of authentic history. I say it in 
deep solemnity, and with profound conviction, that so far are you 
from being the Holy Catholic Church, that your right to be re- 
garded as a Church of God at all in any just or scriptural sense, 
is exceedingly questionable. A community which buries the 
truth of God under a colossal pile of lying legends, and makes 
the preaching of Christ's pure Gospel a damnable sin — which 
annuls the signs in the holy sacraments, and by a mystic power 
of sacerdotal enchantment pretends to bestow the invisible grace 
— which, instead of the ministry of reconciliation, whose busi- 
ness it is to preach the word, cheats the nations with a pagan 
priesthood whose function it is to offer up sacrifice for the living 
and the dead — which, instead of the pure, simple, and spiritual 
worship that constitutes the glory of the Christian Church, daz- 
zles the eyes with the gorgeous solemnities of pagan superstition ; 
a community like this — and such is the Church of Rome — can 
be regarded in no other light than as " a detestable system of 
impiety, cruelty and imposture, fabricated by the father of lies." 
Like the " huge and monstrous Wen" of which ancient story * 
tells us, that claimed a seat, in the council of the body next to 
the head itself, the constitution of the Papacy is an enormous 

* See the story told in Milton, Reform, in Eng. b. ii. 



14 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

excrescence which has grown from the Church of Christ, and 
which when opened and dissected by the implements of Divine 
truth, is found to be but a " heap of hard and loathsome unclean- 
ness — a foul disfigurement and burden." The Christian world 
was justly indignant with the fraternal address which English 
Socinians submitted "to the Ambassador of the mighty Emperor 
of Fez and Morocco" at the Court of Charles the Second * 
But their own spurious charity to Papists is a no less treacher- 
ous betrayal of the cause of truth. What claims have Roman 
Catholics to be regarded as Christians, which may not be pleaded 
with equal propriety in behalf of the Mahometans? Is it that 
Rome professes to receive the word of God as contained in the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ? The false Prophet 
of Arabia makes the same pretension. Assisted in the composi- 
tion of the Koran by an apostate Jew and a renegado Christian, 
he has given a lodgment to almost every heresy which had in- 
fected the Church of Christ in this rude and chaotic mass of 
fraud and imposture. Professing to receive the Bible, he makes 
it of none effect by his additions to its teaching. The real creed 
of Mahometans has no countenance from Scripture. It is on 
the ground that Mahomet makes void the word of God by his pre- 
tended Revelations, that he is treated by the Christian world as a 
blasphemer and impostor. Has not Rome equally silenced the 
oracles of God in the din and clatter of a thousand wicked tra- 
ditions? Her real creed — that which gives form and body to 
the system — which is proposed alike as the rule of the living and 
the hope of the dying — is not only not to be found in the Bible, 
but contradicts every distinctive principle of the glorious Gospel 
of God's grace. If Mahometans justify the heterogeneous addi- 
tions of their Prophet to the acknowledged revelation of Heaven, 
by pretending that the Bible is imperfect, and consequently, inade- 
quate as a rule of faith and practice, how much better is the con- 
duct of Rome in reference to the same matter? She may not 
assume with Mahomet that the Scriptures have been corrupted, 
but she does assume that the Scriptures are not what God de- 
clares that they are — able not only to make us wise unto salvation, 

* See Leslie's Socinian Controversy. For the authenticity of this address 
see Horsely's Tracts in controversy with Dr. Priestly. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 15 

but to make " the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto 
every good work."* Again, Rome's bulwark is tradition. Ma- 
homet, however, far outstrips her in this matter, and appeals to 
a tradition preserved by the descendants of Ishmael that reaches 
back to the time of Abraham. 

So also in the article of infallibility and authoritative teach- 
ing, the Arabian impostor and the Roman harlot stand on sim- 
ilar ground. The doctrines of the Koran are announced with 
no other evidence than the avzog etprj of the master — and the 
Edicts of Trent claim to bind the world, because they are the 
Edicts of Trent. In one respect the religion of Mahomet is 
purer than that of Rome — it is free from idolatry. There is in 
it no approximation to what Gibbon calls the " elegant mythology 
of Greece." 

Mahometanism and Popery are, in truth, successive evolutions 
in a great and comprehensive plan of darkness, conceived by a 
master mind for the purpose of destroying the kingdom of light, 
and perpetuating the reign of death. For centuries of ignorance 
and guilt, the god of this world possessed a consolidated empire 
in the unbroken dominion, among all the nations but one, of 
pagan idolatry. This was the grand enemy of Christ in the 
Apostolic age, When this fabric, however, in the provinces of 
ancient Rome tottered to its fall, with his characteristic subtlety 
and fraud, the Great Deceiver, according to the predictions of 
Prophets and Apostles, began another structure in the corruption 
of the Gospel itself, which should be equally imposing and more 
fatal, because it pretended a reverence for truth. Under the 
plausible and sanctimonious pretexts of superior piety and extra- 
ordinary zeal, the simple institutions of the Gospel were gradu- 
ally undermined — errors, one by one, were imperceptibly intro- 
duced — the circle of darkness continued daily to extend, until, 
in an age of profound slumber, through the deep machinations 
of the wicked one, the foundations of the Papacy were securely 
laid. The Temple of the Western Antichrist, erected on the 
ruins of Christianity in the bounds of the Roman See, and requir- 
ing, as it did, the corruptions of ages to prepare, cement, and 

* 2 Tim. 3. 17. 



16 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

consolidate its parts, owes its compactness of form and harmoni- 
ous proportions to the profound policy and consummate skill of 
the enemy of souls. As left by the Council of Trent, the Papal 
Church stands completely accoutred in the panoply of darkness 
— the grand instrument of Satan in the West as Mahometanism 
in the East — to oppose the Kingdom of God.* The lights are 
now extinguished on the altar — those in her, but not of her, who 
have any lingering reverence for God are required to abandon 
her — her gorgeous forms and imposing ceremonies, are only the 
funeral rites of religion — the life, spirit, and glory have departed. 
Entertaining, as I do, these convictions in regard to the Papal 
community, I shall not pretend to sentiments which as a man 
I ought not to cherish, and as a Christian I dare not tolerate. 
Peace with Rome is rebellion against God. My love to Him, to 
His Church, His truth, and the eternal interests of men, will for- 
ever prevent me — even indirectly by a mawkish liberality which 
can exist only in words — from bidding God-speed to this Baby- 
lonish merchant of souls. But I wish it to be distinctly under- 
stood that my most unsparing denunciations of doctrines and 
practices which seem to me to lead directly to the gates of death, 
are not to be construed into a personal abuse of the Papists them- 
selves. Little as they believe it, I would gladly save them from 
the awful doom of an apostate church. 

With these general explanations of the spirit by which I am 
and shall continue to be actuated, I shall pass on to make a few 
remarks in vindication of the expressions at which you have 
taken offence, as indicating ill feelings on my part, and " with 
which even in quotations you are unwilling to sully your pen." 
These expressions, you will excuse me for saying, are perfectly 
proper. 

Protestants designate their own churches by terms descrip- 
tive of their peculiar forms of government, or the distinctive 
doctrines they profess. Some are called Presbyterians, and 
some Prelatists, some Calvinists, and others Arminians. You 
acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope — this is a distinctive 
feature of your system — where then is the ground of offence in 

* The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin is supposed to 
be derived from the Koran. See Gibbon, p. 310, vol. vi. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 17 

applying to you a term, or as you choose to call it, a " vulgar 
epithet," which exactly describes a characteristic principle of 
your sect ? 

Then again, as to the phrases " vassals of Rome," and " cap- 
tives to the car of Rome," they are really the least offensive 
terms in which your relations to the Papal See, as set forth in 
standard writers of your own Church, can be expressed. You 
must be aware, sir, or you would hardly venture to assume with 
so much confidence the air of a scholar, that the word vassal 
was employed by our earlier writers as equivalent to a man of 
valor, and was far from conveying a reproachful meaning. 
" The word," says Richardson, " is, indeed, evidently as much 
a term of honor as knighthood was." It is certainly a softer 
term than slave, which, according to Cicero's definition of servi- 
tude — " obedientia fracti animi et abjecti et arbitrio carentis 
suo"* — seems to be more exactly adapted to describe your state. 
Captivity to Christ is the glory of a Christian, and as the voice 
of Rome is to you the word of the Lord, I do not see why you 
should object to being called " captives to the car of Rome." I 
am afraid, sir, that the real harm of these words is not to be 
found in their vulgarity and coarseness, but in the unpalatable 
truth which they contain. If there were no sore, there would be 
no shrinking beneath the probe. As to my " mocking language 
concerning the awful mystery of transubstantiation," I am not 
yet persuaded that there is any other mystery in this huge ab- 
surdity, but "the mystery of iniquity. 5 ' To you, sir, it may be 
awful — so no doubt were calves and apes to their Egyptian wor- 
shippers. 

I. Your letters contain, or profess to contain, an explanation 
of what the Council of Trent actually did in regard to the Canon 
of Scripture — a vindication of its conduct, and a labored reply 
to my short arguments against the inspiration of the Apocrypha. 
In other words, they naturally divide themselves into three parts 
— a statement, the proof, and refutation — of each in its order. 

In your statement of what the Council did, you have given us 
a definition of the word Canonf which, as it adequately repre- 

* Cicero Paradoxon, v. i. 

t " A Canon I have always understood to be a list or catalogue, setting 

2* 



18 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

sents neither ancient nor modern usage — the term not being, as 
you seem to imply, univocal — may be regarded as an humbling 
confession of your own ignorance. If, sir, you " have always 
understood the word " in the sense which you assign to it, your 
acquaintance with the early Ecclesiastical writers is so manifestly 
limited as to create a very strong suspicion that, with all your 
parade of learning, you have been little more than the ferret 
and mouse-hunt of an index. As I shall have occasion, in an- 
other part of this discussion, to revert to this subject again, it 
will be sufficient for my present purpose to observe that, in the 
modern acceptation of the term, the Scriptures are not called 
canonical because they are found in any given catalogue, but 
because they are authoritative as a rule of faith. The common 
metaphorical meaning of the Greek word xavwv is a rule or 
measure. In this sense it is used by the classical writers of 
antiquity,* as well as by the great Apostle of the Gentiles. f 
Whether found in a catalogue or not, if the inspiration of a 
book can be adequately determined, it possesses, at once, canoni- 
cal authority. It becomes, as far as it goes, a standard of 
faith. And with all due deference, sir, to your superior facili- 
ties for understanding aright the decisions of your Church, you 
will permit me to declare that the Council of Trent, which you 
so much venerate, in pronouncing the Apocrypha canonical, 
either employed the term in the sense which I have indicated, 
and made these books an authoritative rule of faith, or was 
guilty of a degree of folly, which, with all my contempt for the 
character of its members, I am unwilling to impute to them. 
You inform us, sir, that a book is to be regarded as sacred 
because it is inspired ; but that no book, whatever be its origin, 
is to be received as canonical until it is inserted in some existing 

forth what books are inspired, not giving or dispensing inspiration to unin- 
spired books. A work to be entitled to a place in a Canon, must be believed 
to have been always inspired ; and if believed to have been inspired at any one 
period, it must be believed to have always been inspired. Until a Canon is 
formed, a catalogue of inspired books drawn up, manifestly though many works 
may be sacred because inspired, none can be canonical, because none can be 
inserted in a catalogue which does not yet exist." — Letter I. 

* Aristotle Polit. lib. ii. cap. 8. Eurip. Hec. 602. 

t Gal. 6. 16. Phil. 3. 16. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 19 

catalogue. With this key to the interpretation of its language, 
the Council of Trent* has pronounced its anathema not only 
on the man who refuses to receive these books as inspired , but 
also on him who does not believe that they are found in a cata- 
logue. He is as much bound, on pain of what you interpret to 
be excommunication, to believe in the existence of a list of 
inspired books, as he is to believe in the Divine authority of the 
books themselves. It is not enough for him to know that the 
various documents which compose the Bible were written by 
men whose minds were guided by the Holy Ghost, — he must 
also know that a body of men in some quarter of the world has 
actually inserted the names of these books in a catalogue or list. 
" Risum teneatis, amici !" 

Now, sir, to borrow an illustration from your favorite quar- 
ter — suppose one of our slaves should be converted to Popery, 
that is, should receive as true all the dogmas that the Priests 
inculcate, and yet be ignorant that such a learned body as the 
Council of Trent had ever been convened, or, what is no un- 
common thing among you, be profoundly ignorant that such a 
book as the Bible exists at b\\, would he be damned? To say 
nothing of his not receiving the Scriptures under such circum- 
stances as sacred, he most assuredly does not receive them as 
canonical in your sense. He knows nothing of a list or cata- 
logue in which these books are enumerated. It is an idle 
equivocation to say that the curse has reference only to those 
who know the existence of the catalogue. In that case the 
sin which is condemned, is evidently a sheer mpossibility 
except to a man who was stark mad. To know that a catalogue 
is composed of certain books, and this is the only way of know- 
ing it as a catalogue, and yet not to believe that the books are 
in it, is a mental contradiction which can only be received 
by those whose capacious understandings can digest the mystery 
of transubstantiation. 

* " Now if any one does not receive as sacred and canonical those books 
entire with all their parts, as they have been usually read in the Catholic 
Church and are found in the old Latin Vulgate edition ; and shall knowingly 

and industriously contemn the aforesaid traditions : let him be anathema." 

Letter I. 






20 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

According to your statement, the venerable Fathers assem- 
bled at Trent did three things: — 1. They decided what books 
were inspired — 2. They arranged them in a list — and 3. They 
excommunicated all those heretics who would not receive both 
books and list. In my humble opinion, however, the Holy Fa- 
thers declared what books they received as sacred and authorita- 
tive in matters of faith, and pronounced their curse upon those 
who did not acknowledge the same rule with themselves. I shall 
quote from the decree itself, in your own beautiful and accurate 
translation, a sentence which shows that your sense of the term 
canonical was foreign from their thoughts. " It has, moreover, 
thought proper to annex to this decree a catalogue of the sacred 
books, lest any doubt might arise which are the books received 
by this Council." You will find on recurring to the original, 
that the word which you have rendered catalogue is not canona, 
but indicem. Again, sir, as the Fathers are said to receive these 
books before their own list is made, how did they do it? — Evi- 
dently in the same way, unless there be one sort of faith for the 
people and another for divines, in which they required others to 
receive them, that is, as sacred and canonical. But the preced- 
ing part of the decree contains not a word about the existence 
of former catalogues, though it is particular to insert the inspi- 
ration of these books as well as of tradition as the ground of their 
reception, maintaining, at the same time, that they were, if not 
the rule, at least what is equivalent to it, the source (fontem) of 
every saving truth and of moral discipline. Hence in the sense 
of Trent to be sacred and canonical, " is to be inspired as a rule 
of faith." 

After this specimen of your skill in the art of definitions, 
we are not to be astonished at still more marvellous achieve- 
ments in the way of translation. The following words, clear 
and explicit in themselves, " pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia 
suscipit et veneratur," I find are rendered by you in English, 
hardly less equivocal than the language of an ancient oracle.* 

* " Receives with due piety and reverence and venerates." The same blun- 
der is found in the translation of this decree prefixed to the Doway version of 
the Scriptures, 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 21 

Sir, to say nothing of the obvious meaning of the words, as 
it might be gathered from a Lexicon, if you had read the debates 
of the Council even in your own Jesuit historian, Pallavicino* 

* " Deinde quo res per futuram Sessionem statuendae discutiuntur, idem 
Legatus exposuit : Optimum sibi factu videri, ut primo loco recenserentur ac reci- 
perentur libri Canonici sacrarum Literarum, quo certo constaret, quibus armis 
esset in haereticos dimicandum, et in qua basi fundanda esset Fides Catholi- 
corum ; quorum aliqui superare misere angebantur, cum cernerent in eodem 
libro a plurimis Spiritus digitum adorari, alios contra digitum impostoris execrari. 
Hoc statuto tria in peculiaribus coetibus proposita sunt. Primum, an omnia 
utriusque testament] volumina essent comprobanda. Alterum, an ea compro- 
batio per novum examen peragenda : tertium a Bertano ac Seripando proposi- 
tum, an expediret sacros libros in duas classes partiri : alteram eorum quae ad 
promovendam populi pietatem pertinent, et illius ergo solum ab Ecclesia re- 
cepti tamquam boni, cujusmodi videbantur esse Proverbiorum et Sapientiae libri, 
nondum ab Ecclesia probati tamquam Canonici, tametsi frequens eorum mentio 
haberetur facta apud Hieronymum et Augustinum, aliosque veteres auctores; 
alteram eorum, quibus etiam fidei dogmata innituntur. Sed ea divisio, tametsi 
ab aliquo auctore prius facta, et tunc a Seripando promota per libellum eruditissi- 
mum ea gratia conscriptum, quo cuncti libri Canonici rite experentur, uti reve- 
ra firmam rationem non praeferebat, ita nee sua specie Patres allexit, vix nacta 
laudato rem : quare nihil ultra de ilia disputabimus." Pallavicino, Hist. Cone. 
Trident, lib. vi. cap. 11. 

" How the business to be transacted by the approaching session should be dis- 
cussed, was explained by the same legate. It seemed to him most advisable that 
the canonical books of the Holy Scriptures should be in the first place enumer- 
ated and received, so that it might be certainly understood, with what weapons 
they were to fight the heretics, and on what basis the Catholic faith should be 
founded. In regard to this matter, some were miserably perplexed, since they 
perceived that, in the same book, many adored the hand of the Spirit, while 
others detected the hand of an impostor. Three propositions were before the com- 
mittees: 1. Whether all the books of each Testament should be approved. 2. 
Whether the approbation should be given upon a new examination to be gone 
through. 3. The third proposition was that of Bertan and Seripand, whether it 
would be better to distribute the sacred books into two classes, the first em- 
bracing those that were received by the church on account of their subserviency 
to the piety of the people, (of which sort were Proverbs and Wisdom,) but which 
were not allowed to be inserted in the canon, though frequently mentioned by 
Jerome, Augustine, and other ancient writers. The other class embracing those 
upon which the doctrines of the faith depend. This division, however, into two 
classes, though it had been previously made by a certain author, and was then 
learnedly promoted by Seripand in a work written with the view of setting all 
the books of the canon in their proper light, was supported by no good reason, 
and found so little favor that it obtained scarcely a single vote." 



22 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

you would have learned, what you seem not now to know, that 
it was the intention of the Fathers in this famous decree to place 
the Apocrypha and unwritten traditions upon a footing of equal 
authority with the book which the Lutherans acknowledged as 
inspired. — Their object was to give their canon or rule of faith. 
Determined as the Pope and his legates were to suppress the 
Reformation, which had then been successfully begun, and to 
perpetuate the atrocious abuses of the Roman Court, they com- 
menced the work of death by poisoning the waters of life at the 
fountain. In the sentence immediately succeeding the anath- 
ema, we are given to understand that the preliminary measures 
in reference to faith were designed to indicate the manner in 
which the subsequent proceedings of the Council touching 
questions of doctrine and order should be conducted. They 
settled the proofs and authorities — to which in all their future 
deliberations they intended to appeal. As Luther was to be 
crushed, and as the armory of God's word furnished no weapons 
with which this incorrigible heretic could be convicted of error, 
a stronger bulwark must needs be raised to protect the abuses 
and cover the corruptions of the Church of Rome. You can- 
not be ignorant, sir, that much difficulty was felt by the Council 
in settling the list of Canonical books.* It was not prepared at 
once to outrage truth and history by making that divine, which 

* " Some thought fit to establish three ranks. The first, of those which 
have been always held as divine ; the second, of those whereof sometimes doubt 
hath been made, but by use have obtained canonical authority, in which num- 
ber are the six Epistles, and the Apocalypse of the New Testament, and some 
small parts of the Evangelists. The third, of those whereof there hath never 
been any assurance ; as are the seven of rhe Old Testament and some chapters 
of Daniel and Esther. Some thought it better to make no distinction at all, but 
to imitate the Council of Carthage and others, making the catalogue, and say- 
ing no more. Another opinion was that all of them should be declared to be in 
all parts, as they are in the Latin Bible, of Divine and equal authority. The 
book of Baruc troubled them most, which is not put in the number, neither by 
the Laodicians, nor by those of Carthage, nor by the Pope, and therefore should 
be left out, as well for this reason, as because the beginning of it cannot be 
found. But because it was read in the Church, the congregation, esteeming 
this a potent reason, resolved that it was, by the ancients, accounted a part of 
Jeremy and comprised with him." — Father Paul, pp. 142, 143. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 23 

the Church of God had never received as the work of the Holy 
Ghost. But, sir, without the Apocrypha and unwritten tradi- 
tion, the Holy Fathers were unable to construct an embankment 
sufficient to roll back the cleansing tide of life which Luther 
was endeavoring to pour into the Augean stable of Papal impu- 
rity and filth. The awful plunge was consequently taken, and 
these spurious books and lying legends were made standards of 
faith of equal authority with God's holy word. Inspired Scrip- 
ture, apocryphal productions, and unwritten traditions were not 
only received with due piety and reverence, as you would have 
us to believe, but were received with equal piety and veneration, 
as the decree itself asserts. This, sir, is what Trent did — and 
until it can be shown that all these elements of Papal faith are 
really entitled to the same degree of authority and esteem — 
that they are all, in other words, equally inspired — my charge of 
intolerable arrogance remains unanswered against the Church of 
Rome. I said, and repeat the accusation, that she made that 
divine, which is notoriously human, and that inspired, which, 
in the sense of the Apostle, is notoriously of private interpre- 
tation. ;; I did not impeach the Council for having presumed 
to draw up a catalogue of sacred and canonical books — but I 
did impeach it and do still impeach it of one of the most awful 
crimes which a mortal can commit, in having solemnly declared 
" thus saith the Lord," when the Lord had neither spoken nor 
sent them. The insulted nations, heart-sick with abuses, were 
looking, with the anxiety of a dying man, for the sovereign rem- 
edy which it was confidently hoped would be prepared and 
administered by this long-looked for assembly of spiritual physi- 
cians ; but when the day of their redemption, as they fondly 
dreamed, had at length arrived, and the cup of blessing was put 
to their lips — behold ! instead of the promised cure, a deadly 
mixture of hemlock and nightshade ! Five crafty cardinals and 
a few dozen prelates from Spain and Italy, called together by 
the authority of the Pope, and acting in slavish subjection to 
his sovereign will, as if the measure of their iniquity was now 
full, and the hour of their final and complete infatuation had at 
length arrived, proceeded, with the daring desperation of men 
bereft of shame and abandoned of God, to collect the accumu- 



24 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

lated errors of ages into one enormous pile, and to send forth, 
as if from the "boiling alembic of hell/' the blackening vapors 
of death to obscure the dawning light, to cover the earth with 
darkness, and involve the people in despair. Where were truth 
and decency, sir, when this miserable cabal * of scrambling 
politicians claimed to represent the universal Church ? Is it 
not notorious that when the canon of your faith was settled, 
even Papal Europe was so poorly represented that not a single 
deputy was found in the Council from whole nations that it 
assumed to govern? Its pretensions, too, to be guided by the 
Holy Ghost, when its whole history attests that the spirit of the 
Pope was the presiding spirit of the body, afford " damning 

* When we call to mind the arts and subterfuges by which the Court of 
Rome endeavored to evade the necessity of calling a Council — its long delays, 
while groaning Europe was clamoring for reform — its wily manoeuvres, when 
the necessity at last became inevitable, to have the Council under its own con- 
trol — the crafty policy by which it succeeded — when we look at these things, 
and whoever has read the History of Europe during that period cannot be 
ignorant of them — the language of the text " cannot be deemed too severe." 
The Council was evidently a mere tool of the Pope. The following extracts, 
one from Robertson, the other from Father Paul, (a Papist himself,) may be 
taken as an offset to the testimony of Hallam — and a flat contradiction to " A. 
P. F.'s" account of the learning of the body. 

" But whichever of these authors," says Robertson, referring to the histo- 
ries of Father Paul, Pallavicino and Vargas, " whichever of these authors an 
intelligent person takes for his guide, in forming a judgment concerning the 
Spirit of the Council, he must discover so much ambition as well as artifice 
among some of the members, so much ignorance and corruption among others ; 
he must observe such a large infusion of human policy and passions, mingled 
with such a scanty portion of that simplicity in heart, sanctity of manners, and 
love of truth, which alone qualify men to determine what doctrines are worthy of 
God, and what worship is acceptable to him, that he will find it no easy matter 
to believe that an extraordinary influence of the Holy Ghost hovered over this 
assembly and dictated its decrees." — Charles V. vol. iii. b. x. p. 400. 

" Neither was there amongst those Prelates any one remarkable for learn- 
ing : some of them were lawyers, perhaps learned in that profession, but of lit- 
tle understanding in religion ; few divines but of less than ordinary sufficiency ; 
the greater number gentlemen or courtiers ; and for their dignities some were 
only titular and the major part Bishops of so small cities, that supposing every 
one to represent his people, it could not be said that one of a thousand in Chris- 
tendom was represented. But particularly of Germany there was not so much 
as one Bishop or divine." — Father Paul, p. 153. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 25 

proof " that it was given up to " hardness of heart and reprobacy 
of mind." You have favored us, sir, with an extract from 
Hallam, which I shall not crave pardon for asserting is entitled 
to about as much respect as his discriminating censures of 
Pindar's Greek. I am surprised, sir, that you should have 
ventured to commend the learning of the Fathers of Trent. 
The matter can easily be settled by an appeal to facts. Cajetan 
was reputed to be the most eminent man among them, " unto 
whom," says Father Paul, " there was no prelate or person in 
the Council who would not yield in learning, or thought himself 
too good to learn of him ;"* yet, with all his learning, he knew 
not a word of Uebreiv. What divine of the present day would 
be deemed a scholar at all, who could not read the Scriptures in 
the original tongues ? When the question of the authenticity 
of the Vulgate was under discussion in the Council, what a 
holy horror was displayed of Grammarians ! what shocking alarm 
lest the dignities of the Church should be given to Pedants, 
instead of Divines and Canonists ?f Sir — why this dread of 
the Hebrew and Greek originals if your pastors and teachers 
could read them ? Is it not a shrewd presumption that you 
made the Bible authentic in a tongue which you could read, 
because God |had made it authentic in tongues which you could 
not read 1 So much for the learning of these venerable men. 

II. Having sufficiently shown that your statement is a series of 
blunders, and your eulogy on the Council wholly unfounded, I pro- 
ceed to your proof. The point which you propose to establish is, 
that the Apocrypha were given by inspiration of God. You un- 
dertake to furnish that positive proof which I had demanded, and 
without which I had asserted that no moral obligation could exist 
to receive them. Before,, however, you proceed to exhibit your 
argument, you step aside for a moment to show us the extent of 
your learning in regard to the disputes which at various times 
have been agitated touching the books that should be received as 
inspired. Sir, the object of such statements is obvious — you wish 
to create the impression that the whole subject of the canon is in- 
volved in inextricable confusion, and that the only asylum for the 

* Page 145. t Father Paul, page 146. 



26 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

doubting and distressed — the only place in which the truth can 
be found and perplexities resolved, is the bosom of your own com- 
munion. In your zeal, sir, to represent Protestants as without any 
solid foundations for their faith, it would be well to confine your- 
self to statements better supported than some that you have 
made. That the Sadducees, as a sect, rejected all the books of the 
Old Testament, with the exception of the Pentateuch, is certainly 
not to be received upon the conjectures of the Fathers against the 
violent improbabilities which press the assertion — improbabilities 
so violent that with all his regard for the Fathers, Basnage* has 
been compelled to soften down the proposition into the milder 
statement that this skeptical sect only attributed greater author- 
ity to the writings of Moses than to the rest of the canon. If by 
the Albigens.es you mean the Paulicians, you can know but little 
about them except what you have gathered from their bitter and 
implacable enemies. The documents of their faith have all per- 
ished. You cannot be ignorant, however, that Protestant divines 
have constructed a strong argument from the very nature of their 
origin, to rebut the assertion which you have ventured to assume 
as true. Really, sir, when I consider your wonderful ability in 
giving definitions and translating from Latin, and join to these 
your profound acquaintance with ecclesiastical antiquity, I may 
well tremble to encounter so formidable an opponent in the field 
of Dialectics. Upon this arena we are now to meet. 



LETTER II. 



Dr. Lynch's great argument in proof of the inspiration of the Apocrypha shown to be am- 
biguous. — The testimony of the Papacy, on moral grounds, entitled to no consideration. 

I come now, sir, to the examination of your argument for the 
inspiration of the Apocrypha, as well as of all the other books 

* Basnage Histoire des Juifs, torn. ii. pt. i. p. 325. — Brucker Crit. Hist. 
Phil. torn. ii. p. 721. See particularly Eichhorn who has clearly shown that 
the charge is unfounded. Einleit. 4th Edit. vol. i. p. 136. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 27 

which you profess to receive as sacred and canonical. It is 
really a curious specimen of dialectic skill. I know of nothing 
fit to be compared with it in point of originality and power, but 
the famous oration of the Bishop of Bitonto, on opening the ven- 
erable Council of Trent, in which he predicted the most glori- 
ous results from a series of puns on the names and surnames of 
the presiding Cardinals,* or that still more remarkable specimen 
of ingenuity and acuteness by which your angelic doctor and 
eagle of divines so triumphantly proves that it is the duty of in- 
feriors to submit to their superiors in the Church from the very 
pertinent and conclusive passage, " the oxen were ploughing and 
the asses feeding beside them." No doubt your ambition is 
excited to rival these departed worthies of your sect ; to achieve 
for yourself a name which posterity shall not willingly let die; to 
become, in process of time, and your efforts give every promise 
of being crowned with success, 

" A second Thomas, or at once, 
To name them all, another Dunce." 

In appreciating the force and importance of your argument, 
it will be necessary to bear distinctly in mind that the conclusion 
which you aim to establish is not to be probably true, but infal- 
libly certain. You require of those who undertake to determine 
for themselves what books have been given by inspiration of God, 
to decide this matter with absolute certainty, or to renounce the 
exercise of their private judgments. In proposing, therefore, a 

* " We enter upon and commence this General Council lawfully assembled, 
with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, by the sanction of the Apostolic See, and 
under the direction of these prelates, who stand conspicuous in this holy com- 
pany — a new Jerusalem, viz. Johanne Maria de Monte, whose looks and af- 
fections are continually directed upward to the mountain (montem) which is 
Christ, whence comes our strength. Marcello Politino, who formerly directed 
the efforts of his profound and impartial mind to the support of the Christian 
Commonwealth (politiae), whose corrupt morals have afforded our enemies an 
opportunity to attack us. Reginald Pole, more resembling an angel than an 
Englishman (non tam Anglo, quam angelo)." 

This extraordinary speech of the Bishop of Bitonto, in the midst of all its 
extravagance and blasphemy, contains one truth — a very just comparison of 
the Council of Trent to the Trojan horse. What could more forcibly illustrate 
the fraud, hypocrisy and mischievous designs of the Holy Fathers ? 



28 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

" more excellent way," you could not think of substituting one 
which did not fulfil this high and important condition. Your 
conclusion, then, is not to be a matter of opinion but infallible 
truth, and if your arguments do not establish beyond the possi- 
bility of a reasonable doubt the inspiration of the Apocrypha, 
they fall short of the purpose which you have brought them for- 
ward to sustain. Your proposition consequently is that there is 
infallible evidence that the Apocrypha were given by inspiration 
of God — or to state it in another form, that the Apocrypha were 
inspired, is infallibly and absolutely certain. Your general argu- 
ment may be compendiously expressed in the following syllo- 
gism : 

Whatever the pastors of the Church of Rome declare to be 
true must be infallibly certain : 

That the Apocrypha were inspired the pastors of the Church 
of Rome declare to be true : 

Therefore it must be infallibly certain. 

In other words, the Council of Trent did not err in this par- 
ticular case, because it could not err in any case. It is the argu- 
mentum a non posse ad non esse, which is then only logically 
sound when the non posse is sufficiently established. Since the 
whole weight of your reasoning rests upon the truth of your ma- 
jor proposition, you have very judiciously employed all your re- 
sources in fortifying it. Still, sir, after all your care, it is sig- 
nally exposed to heretical assaults. In the first place, you must 
be aware that your argument is vitiated by that species of paral- 
ogism which logicians denominate ambiguity of the middle. 
What is the precise extension of the words " pastors of the 
Church of Rome ?" They may be understood either universally, 
particularly, or distributively ; and you will excuse me for saying, 
that in the course of your first letter you have either employed 
them in each of these different applications or I have been wholly 
unable to apprehend your meaning. At one time it would seem 
that you mean the whole body of your priesthood collected to- 
gether in a grand assembly. You speak of a body of individuals, 
to whom, in their collective capacity, God has given authority to 
make an unerring decision." Then, again, you inform us that 
the " pastors of the Catholic Church" (meaning, of course, the 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 29 

Church of Rome) " claim to compose it." In addition to this 
you speak of a single priest " presenting himself to instruct a 
Christian or an infidel" as a member of the body — whence the 
inference is natural and necessary, that every priest is a member 
of the body. From a comparison of these various passages in your 
first letter, it would evidently appear that you employed the 
words " pastors of the Church of Rome " in your major pro- 
position in their fullest extension. If, then, you meant an assembly 
composed of all the pastors of the Church of Rome, the Council 
of Trent, which comprised only a small portion of your teachers, 
has not manifestly the shadow of a claim to the precious virtue 
of infallibility. In this case your major might be true, and yet 
your minor would be so evidently false as to destroy completely 
the validity of your conclusion. A body consisting of all the 
pastors of the Church of Rome never has met, never will meet, 
and, from the nature of the case, never can meet; and an infalli- 
bility lodged in such an assembly for the guidance of human 
faith or the regulation of human practice, is just as intangible 
and worthless as if it were lodged with the man in the moon. 
Still, whether this infallible tribunal were accessible or not, your 
argument would be a contemptible sophism. It would stand pre- 
cisely thus : — Whatsoever all the pastors of the Church of Rome 
in their collective capacity declare, must be infallibly certain. 
That the Apocrypha were inspired, some of the pastors of the 
Church of Rome collected at Trent declared. 

Therefore it must be infallibly certain. An infallible con- 
clusion, undoubtedly ! 

But, sir, the words may be taken particularly. If, however, 
they are to be taken in a restricted sense, you should have told 
us precisely what limitation you intended to prefix ; otherwise 
your reasoning may be still vitiated by an ambiguous middle. 
Without such an explanation, we have no means of ascertaining 
whether the words as employed in the minor coincide, as they 
should do, with the same words as employed in the major. You 
should have told us under what circumstances infallibility at- 
taches to some pastors of the Church of Rome, if you indeed 
intended to limit the phrase. That you have occasionally used 
it in a limited sense, is evident from the fact, that you attribute 



30 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

infallibility to the Council of Trent, which was certainly a small 
body compared with all the pastors of your entire Church. Are 
you prepared to say that any number of Popish pastors, met un- 
der any circumstances, shall be infallibly guided by the Holy 
Ghost in all their decisions, concerning doctrine and practice? 
— that even the same number which met at Trent, collected to- 
gether by accident, or merely by mutual consent, would be pos- 
sessed of the same exemption from all possibility of error which 
you ascribe to Trent? If you are not prepared to make this 
assertion, your major proposition is not absolutely true, but only 
under special limitations. These limitations are not even stated, 
much less defined, and while your leading proposition is left in 
this unsettled condition, what logician can determine whether 
your argument be any thing more than a specious fallacy? Cer- 
tain it is, that it can never be regarded as conclusive, until you 
show that all those conditions were fulfilled in the Council of 
Trent, which are necessary to secure infallibility to " some of 
the pastors" of the Church of Rome. Where, sir, in all your 
letters have you touched this point ? What was there that dis- 
tinguished the Fathers of Trent from an equal number of 
Bishops and Divines met together upon their own responsibility 
in such a way as to make the former infallible, and the latter 
not? Was it the authority of the Pope? Then, sir, your argu- 
ment was not complete until you had proved, with absolute cer- 
tainty, that a Papal Bull secures the guidance of the Holy Ghost! 
Was it the concurrence of the Emperor? This matter is no- 
where established. Was it both combined ? What was it, sir ? 
Reasoning to you, sir, is evidently a new vocation. You have been 
hi the habit of trusting so implicitly to the authority of others in 
the formation of your creed, that your first efforts at ratiocina- 
tion are as awkward and ridiculous, as the rude motions of an 
infant just learning to walk, or of a bird just learning to fly. Let 
me remind you, sir, that as you aim at an infallible conclusion, 
every step of your argument must be supported by infallible 
proof There must be no hidden ambiguities — no rash assump- 
tions — no precipitate deductions. In so solemn a business, you 
should construct a solid fabric, able to support the enormous 
weight which you would have us to rest upon it. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 31 

There is still another meaning, which your major proposition 
may bear. You may have employed the words " pastors of the 
Church of Rome" in a distributive sense, and then you would 
distinctly inform us that every priest belonging to your sect, 
shall infallibly teach the truth. The application of your argu- 
ment to the condition of the ignorant and unlearned, absolutely 
requires this sense. According to you, every man, no matter 
what may be his condition or attainments, may have infallible 
evidence on the subject of the canon. Where is he to find it? In 
the instructions of the priest, who informs him what books were 
inspired, and what books arose from " private interpretation V* 
The testimony of the single, individual priest, is all the evidence 
that he does or can have. If, then, he has infallible evidence, 
the testimony of the priest, which is his only evidence, must be 
infallible, and consequently the priest himself must be infalli- 
ble too, or incapable of teaching error. It is not enough that the 
water should be pure at the fountain, it must also be pure in the 
channels through which it is conveyed. The Council of Trent 
may have been infallible, but if it has only fallible expounders, 
the 'people can have nothing hut fallible evidence. According to 
you, however, the people do have infallible evidence — therefore, 
the Council must have infallible expounders — therefore every 
pastor must be individually, infallible.* While your argument, 

* " Though there have been infinite disputes as to where the infallibility 
resides ; what are the doctrines it has definitively pronounced true, and who, to 
the individual, is the infallible expounder of what is thus infallibly pronounced 
infallible ; yet he who receives this doctrine in its integrity, has nothing more 
to do than to eject his reason, sublime his faith into credulity, and reduce his 
creed to these two comprehensive articles : ( I believe whatsoever the Church 
believes ;' ' I believe that the Church believes whatsoever my father-confessor 
believes that, she believes.' For thus he reasons : nothing is more certain than 
whatsoever God says is infallibly true ; it is infallibly true that the Church says 
just what God says ; it is infallibly true that what the Church says is known ; 
and it is also infallibly true that my father-confessor, or the parson of the next 
parish, is an infallible expositor of what is thus infallibly known to be the 
Church's infallible belief, of what God has declared to be infallibly true. If any 
one of the links, even the last, in this strange sorites, be supposed unsound, if 
it be not true that the priest is an infallible expounder to the individual of the 
Church's infallibility, if his judgment be only ' private judgment,' we come back 



32 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

however, indispensably requires this sense, you seem to disclaim 
it in those passages of your letters, which speak of a body of in- 
dividuals in their collective capacity, as the chosen depositories 
of the truth of God. How, I beseech you, is a poor Protestant 
heretic, with no other helps but his grammar and lexicon, and 
no other guide but his own reason, to detect your real meaning 
in this mass of ambiguity and confusion ? I would not misrep- 
resent you, and yet I confess that I do not understand you. I 
can put no intelligible sense upon your words, which shall make 
all the parts of your letter consistent with themselves. You 
seem to have shifted your position, as often as you added to your 
paragraphs. We have no less than four distinct propositions 
covertly concealed under the deceitful terms of your major 
premiss : 

1. Whatsoever all the pastors of the Church of Rome declare, 
must be infallibly true. 

2. Whatsoever some of the pastors of the Church of Rome, 
under certain special limitations, declare, must be infallibly true. 

3. Whatsoever some of the pastors of the Church of Rome 
under any circumstances declare, must be infallibly true. 

4. Whatsoever any priest or pastor of the Church of Rome 
declares, must be infallibly true. 

Until, sir, you shall condescend to throw more light upon 
the intricacies of your style, your leading proposition must stand 
like an unknown quantity in Algebra ; and for aught that appears 
to the contrary the letter X might have been just as safely and 
just as definitely substituted. Those who look for an infallible 
conclusion in this exquisite specimen of reasoning, must not be 
surprised if they meet with the same success which rewards the 
easy credulity of a child in seeking for golden treasures at the 
foot of the rainbow. Thousands have fully believed that they 
were there, but none have been able to reach the spot. 

The infallibility of testimony which you attribute to the 
pastors of the Church of Rome, you endeavor to collect from two 
general propositions, which it is necessary to your argument to 

at once to the perplexities of the common theory of private judgment." — Edin- 
burgh Review, No. 139, Amer. reprint, p. 206. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 33 

link together as antecedent and consequent. First you inform 
us that God must have " given authority to a body of individu- 
als in their collective capacity to make an unerring decision 
upon the subject " of the canon ; and then you infer that, if 
such a body exists at all, it must be composed of the pastors 
and teachers of the Church of Rome. Until you can show 
that the antecedent in the proposition is necessarily true, and 
the consequent just as necessarily connected with it, you must 
acknowledge, sir, that you have failed in presenting to your 
readers what your extravagant pretensions require, an infalli- 
ble conclusion. You must show, according to the process of 
argument which you have prescribed for yourself, not only that 
an infallible body exists, but that it is and can be composed of 
no other elements but those that you embrace under the dark 
and unknown phrase, " Pastors of the Catholic Church." 
Deficiency of proof on either of these points is fatal to your 
cause. 

It is not a little remarkable, in the history of human paradox, 
contradiction and absurdity, that absolute infallibility should be 
claimed for the testimony of those, who, if tried by the ordinary 
laws which regulate human belief, would be found destitute of 
any decent pretensions to the common degree of credibility. 
You have presented the pastors of the Church of Rome before 
us distinctly in the attitude of witnesses. Their power in regard 
to articles of faith is simply declarative ; they can only trans- 
mit to others, pure and uncorrupted, that which they received at 
the hands of the Apostles. They can add nothing to it; they 
can take nothing from it ; and whatever they may declare to be 
the truth of God according to the original preaching of the Apos- 
tles, we are bound to receive upon their testimony. Whatso- 
ever they declare or testify to be true, according to your state- 
ment, must be infallibly certain. Now the credibility of a wit- 
ness depends as much upon his moral integrity as upon his means 
and opportunities of knowledge. He must not only know the 
truth, but be disposed to speak it. As, too, our assent to testimony 
is ultimately founded upon our instinctive belief that every ef- 
fect must have its adequate cause, when existing causes can be 
assigned which are sufficient to account for the deposition of a 

3 



34 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

witness, apart from the truth of his declarations, we are slow to 
rely on his veracity. In other words, when he is known to be 
under strong temptations to pervert, conceal, or misstate facts, 
we proportionally subtract from the weight of his evidence ; and 
if it should so happen that he had ever been previously detected 
in a lie, few would be inclined to receive his testimony. If 
these remarks be just, whoever would undertake to establish the 
credibility of your pastors, must prove that they are possessed of 
such a degree of moral honesty as to constitute a complete ex- 
emption from all adequate temptations to bear false witness, 
To prove their knowledge of the subject is not enough — their 
integrity must also be fully made out. Any abstract argu- 
ments, however refined and ingenious, would be liable to a pal- 
pable reductio ad absurdum, if after all their extravagant preten- 
sions, it should be ascertained from undeniable facts that your 
priesthood has ever been found destitute of those sterling moral 
qualities which lie at the foundation of all our confidence in tes- 
timony. Has it ever been shown, sir, that the Bishops of your 
Church have never been exposed, from their lordly ambition and in- 
domitable lust, to adequate motives for bearing record to a lie ? 
Has it ever been proved that the purity of their manners and the 
sanctity of their lives have always been such as to render them the 
most unexceptionable witnesses in the holy subject of religion? 
How will you dispose of the remarkable testimony of Pope Ad- 
rian VI., who confessed through his Nuncio to the Diet of Nurem- 
berg, that the deplorable condition of the Church was " caused 
by the sins of men, especially of the Priests and Prelates?" 
What say you, sir, to that admirable commentary on the honesty 
and integrity of your pastors, the " Centum Gravamina' 5 of the 
same memorable Diet, which was carefully and deliberately 
drawn up with a full knowledge of the facts, and despatched 
with all possible rapidity to Rome? Do the records of the past 
furnish no authenticated instances in which your infallible pas- 
tors have either testified to falsehood themselves or applauded 
it in others? Sir, if all history be not a fable, the priesthood of 
Rome, taken as a body, can yield in corruption, ambition, tyranny 
and licentiousness, to no class of men that ever cursed the earth. 
If infallible honesty can be proved of them ; if the Holy Spirit 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 35 

has, indeed, been a perpetual resident in this cage of unclean 
birds; if the ordinary credibility which attaches to a common 
witness can be ascribed to them, where their pride, ambition, or 
interest is involved, then all moral reasoning falls to the ground, 
the measures of truth are deceitful, and we may quietly renounce 
the exercise of judgment, and yield to the caprices of fancy. 
No, sir, instead of being the temple of the Lord, the habitation 
of the Holy One of Israel, your dilapidated Church is a dreary 
spectacle of moral desolation, peopled only by wild beasts of the 
desert, full of doleful creatures, owls, satyrs and dragons.* 

Tried, sir, in^the scale in which other witnesses are tried, 
you will be found deplorably wanting. Your temptations to du- 
plicity are too strong, and your weight of moral character too 
small, to command the least respect for your testimony. Hence, 
you very wisely evade all moral considerations, and resolve your 
boasted infallibility, not into your own attachment to the truth, 
but into a stern necessity, to which God subjects you by his 
guardian Providence and the irresistible operations of his Spirit, of 
uttering whatever he shall put into your mouth, as Baalam's Ass, 
through his power, overcame the impediments of nature and spoke 
in the language of men. Whether you have succeeded in de- 
monstrating by infallible evidence, that you are the subjects — the- 
passive and mechanical subjects — of such an uncontrollable af- 

* " Without entering into the mazes of a frivolous and unintelligible dispute 
about words, it is sufficient to remark, that the supernatural and infallible 
guidance of a Church, which leaves it to stumble on the threshold of morality, 
to confound the essential distinctions of right and wrong, to recommend the vio- 
lation of the most solemn compacts, and the murder of men, against whom 
not a shadow of criminality is alleged, except a dissent from its dogmas, is 
nothing worth ; but must ever ensure the ridicule and abhorrence of those, who 
judge the tree by its fruits, and who will not be easily persuaded that the eter- 
nal fountain of love and purity inhabits the breast, which i breathes out cruelty 
and slaughter.' If persecution for conscience' sake, is contrary to the princi- 
ples of justice and the genius of Christianity ; then, I say, this holy and infalli- 
ble Church was so abandoned of God, as to be permitted to legitimate the foul- 
est crimes — to substitute murders for sacrifice, and to betray a total ignorance 
of the precepts and spirit of the religion which she professed to support ; and 
whether the Holy Ghost condescended, at the same moment, to illuminate one 
hemisphere of minds so hardened, and hearts so darkened, may be safely left 
to the judgment of common sense." — HalVs Works, vol. iv. p. 249. 



SO ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

flatus from above, as may entitle you to a credit which your hon- 
esty and integrity would never warraant, remains now to be in- 
quired. 



LETTER III. 



Examination of the argument from the necessity of the case in favor of some infallible tribunal, 
shown to be presumptuous and weak. 

In resuming now the analysis of your argument, it may be 
well to repeat that the ultimate conclusion which you propose to 
reach is, the infallibility of Rome as a witness for the truth. 
This point you endeavor to establish by showing, in the first 
place, that there must be some " body of individuals to whom, in 
their collective capacity," God has graciously vouchsafed the 
precious prerogative which you claim for your pastors. Accord- 
ing to you the whole question of the truth of Christianity turns 
upon the existence of an infallible tribunal on earth, from which 
men may receive unerring decisions in matters of faith, and with- 
out which the overwhelming majority of the race must be aban- 
doned to hopeless and complete infidelity.* If there were, in- 
deed, no escape from the dilemma to which you have attempted 
to reduce us, the means of salvation would be hardly less fatal 
than the dangers from which they are appointed to rescue us. 
But it may yet be found, sir, that a merciful God has dealt more 
gently with his children than to commit their fate to the teach- 
ings of a body " whose garments are dyed in blood," whose 

* " Does there exist a body of men clothed with this authority, guaranteed 
by such a divine promise from error ] Has it made a declaration setting forth, 
in pursuance of that authority, what works are truly inspired ? You, reverend 
sir, are forced to the alternative of either answering both questions in the 
affirmative, or of saying that the overwhelming majority of Christians are sol- 
emnly bound to reject the Scriptures ; and if they have admitted them, it was 
in violation of the will of God, and of their solemn duty. From this dilemma, 
there is no escape." — Letter I. 

" Unaided reason almost assures me, this is the course the Saviour would 
adopt."— Letter I. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 37 

whole career on earth, like the progress of JoePs locusts, has 
been marked by ruin, and which, if its future blessings are to be 
collected from its past achievements, can give us nothing but 
wormwood and gall, a stone for bread and a serpent for a fish. 
The friends of liberty and man, if reduced to the deplorable al- 
ternative of reaching the sacred Scriptures only on condition of 
submitting to a bondage more grievous than that from which the 
groaning Israelites were delivered by a strong hand and an out- 
stretched arm, would, in all probability, prefer the frozen air of 
infidelity, to the deadly miasma of Rome. But, sir, I am per- 
suaded that no such dilemma, so fatal in either horn, exists in 
reality ; and that there is a plan by which we may be rescued at 
once from the gloomy horrors of skepticism, and the despotic 
cruelty of Rome. To you, sir, it is utterly inconceivable that 
the infinite God, whose judgments are unsearchable and his 
ways past finding out, should have been able to devise, in the ex- 
haustless resources of his wisdom, any plan of authenticating 
the record of his own will, but that which you have prescribed. 
You undertake to prove that there must be a body of individuals 
authorized to make an unerring decision upon the doctrines of 
religion as well as the truth and inspiration of the Scriptures, 
from the absolute impossibility that any other scheme could be 
efficient or successful.* What is this but to limit the Holy 
One of Israel ? You would do well to remember that the pur- 
poses of God are not adjusted by the measures of human prudence 
or of human sagacity. As the heavens are high above the earth, 
so His thoughts are high above our thoughts, and his ways 
above our ways. In his hands broken pitchers and empty lamps 
are capable of achieving as signal execution, as armed legions or 
chariots of fire. To judge, therefore, of the schemes of the 
Eternal, by our own conceptions of expediency or fitness — to 

* " The fourth method alone is, therefore, both practicable in the ordinary 
condition of the Christian world, and efficient. * * * * * After thus establishing 
the absolute necessity of admitting that authority which you impugn, and 
showing the frightful consequences of a contrary course — consequences from 
which, I am certain, you will shrink — I might rest satisfied that' I have fully 
answered your essay, and proved, by clear and cogent arguments, the inspira- 
tion of those works against which it is directed." — Letter I. 



38 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

bring the plans of Him who is wonderful in counsel, and whose 
government is vast beyond the possibility of mortal conception, 
to the fluctuating standard of the wisdom of this world, is to be 
guilty of presumption, equalled by nothing but the transcendent 
folly of the effort. A sound philosophy as well as a proper rever- 
ence for God would surely dictate that His appointments must 
always be efficacious and successful, simply because they are 
His appointments. We are not at liberty upon matters of this 
sort to indulge in vain speculations a priori, and pronounce of 
any measures, that they cannot be adopted, because they seem 
ill-suited to their ends. It is true wisdom to believe that He 
who originally established the connection of means and ends, can 
accomplish His purposes by the feeblest agents, the most un- 
promising arrangements, or by no subsidiary instruments at all. 
Plausible objections avail nothing against divine institutions. 
Whatever does not contradict the essential perfections of the 
Deity, nor involve a departure from that eternal law of right 
which finds its standard in the nature of God, is embraced in 
that boundless range of possibilities which infinite power can ac- 
complish by a single act of the will. Any argument, therefore, 
which bases its conclusion upon the gratuitous assumption that 
the wisdom of God and the conceptions of man shall be found to 
harmonize, is built upon the sand. To you, sir, the theory of 
private judgment may be encumbered with difficulties so insur- 
mountably great as to transcend your ideas of the power of 
God : you can perceive no wisdom in a plan on which priests 
are not tyrants, and the people are not slaves. But your objec- 
tions are hardly less formidable than those of Jews and Greeks 
to the early preaching of the cross. Still, sir, Christ crucified 
was the power of God and the wisdom of God. In your attempt 
to fathom the counsels of Jehovah by arbitrary speculation, and 
to settle with certainty the appointments of his grace, may we 
not detect the degrading effects of a superstition which tolerates 
those who acknowledge a God in a feeble mortal, and finds objects 
of worship in departed men? Certain it is that your reasoning 
involves the tremendous conclusion that the great, the everlast- 
ing Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, is altogether 
such an one as we ourselves. Do you not tell us, in effect, that 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 39 

God could not have given satisfactory evidence of the truth and 
inspiration of his own word, without establishing a visible tri- 
bunal protected from error by his special grace ? And that he is 
thus limited in his resources, thus necessarily tied up to the one 
only plan which the pastors of Rome have found so prodigiously 
profitable to them, according to your reasoning, must be re- 
ceived as an infallible truth, just as absolutely certain as an axiom 
in creometry. The argument by which you reach this stupen- 
dous conclusion, has been wonderfully labored ; but when weighed 
in the balances of logical propriety, it is found as wonderfully 
wanting ; and it becomes a matter of astonishment how any hu- 
man being who " bore a brain" could ever have been so egre- 
giously duped as to have mistaken such a tirade of folly for le- 
gitimate reasoning. I shall now proceed, in all candor and 
fidelity, to expose the " nakedness of the land." 

With a self-sufficiency of understanding which never betray- 
ed itself in such illustrious men as Bacon, Newton, Locke, or 
Boyle, you undertake to enumerate all the possible expedients 
by which God could ascertain his creatures of the inspiration of 
his word. These you reduce to four* and as the first three, 
according to you, are neither " practical nor efficient," the fourth 



* " Now, reverend sir, there may be many ways of seeking to ascertain the 
fact of the inspiration of any writer or writers. They may, however, be all re- 
duced to the jour following methods : 

"1. Is every man, no matter what be his condition, to investigate by his own 
labor and research, and duly examine the arguments that have been or can be 
alleged for and against the several books, which, it is asserted, are inspired ; 
and, on the strength of that examination, to decide for himself with abso- 
lute certainty, what books are and what are not inspired ? 

" 2. Is every individual to receive books as inspired, or to reject them as un- 
inspired, according to the decisions of persons he esteems duly qualified by 
erudition and sound judgment, to determine that question accurately ? 

"3. Must he learn the inspiration of the Scriptures from some individual, 
whom God commissioned to announce this fact to the world 1 

11 4. Must he learn it from a body of individuals, to whom, in their collec- 
tive capacity, God has given authority to make an unerring decision on the sub- 
ject?***** 

" To some one of these four methods eve?~yplan of proving the inspiration o^* 
the Scriptures can be reduced." — Letter I. 



40 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

remains as a necessary truth. In the species of argument * which 
you have thought proper to adopt, the validity of the reasoning 
depends on two circumstances : 1st. All the possible supposi- 
tions which can be conceived to be true must be actually made ; 
and 2d, Every one must be legitimately shown to be false, but the 
one which is embraced in the conclusion. If all the others have 
been refuted, that must be true, provided, from the nature of the 
subject, some one must necessarily be admitted. In the present 
case it is freely conceded that there is some way of settling the can- 
on of Scripture, and hence your argument proceeds upon a legiti- 
mate assumption.! 

1. Now, sir, the first question which arises upon a critical 
review of your argument is : Do your four schemes completely 
exhaust the subject ? Are these the only conceivable plans by 
which the inspiration of the Scriptures could be satisfactorily es- 
tablished ? If not — if there indeed be other methods which you 
have not noticed — other schemes which you have suppressed or 
overlooked — some one of these may be the truth, and your infalli- 
ble conclusion consequently false. In Paley's celebrated argu- 
ment for the benevolence of God, if he had simply stated that the 
Deity must either intend our happiness or misery, and had omit- 
ted entirely all notice of the third supposition, that he might be 
indifferent to both — the conclusion, however true in itself, would 

* The argument ^of " A. P. P." is a destructive disjunctive conditional. 
It may most conveniently be expressed in two consecutive syllogisms . 

A man must either judge for himself concerning the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures, or rely on the authority of others. He cannot judge for himself, there- 
fore, he must rely on the authority of others. This is the first step. 

If he must rely on authority, it must either be the authority of uninspired 
individuals, of a single inspired individual, or an inspired body of individuals. 
It cannot be the first two ; therefore, it it must be the last. Now, accord- 
ing to the books, this species of syllogism must contain in the major all the 
suppositions which can be conceived to be true, then the minor must remove 
or destroy all but one. That one, from the necessity of the case, becomes es- 
tablished in the conclusion. The argument in question, violates both rules, 
and therefore, upon every view of the subject, must be a fallacy. 

t " We cannot be called on to believe any proposition not sustained by ade- 
quate proof. When Almighty God deigned to inspire the words contained in 
the Holy Scriptures, he intended they should be held and believed to be inspired. 
Therefore, tkere does exist some adequate proof of their inspiration." — Letter I. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 41 

not have been logically just. Without pretending that I am ca- 
pable of specifying all the methods by which God might authen- 
ticate his own revelation, I can at least conceive of one, in ad- 
dition to those enumerated by you, which might have been adopt- 
ed, which may therefore possibly be true, and which, until you 
have shown it to be false, must hold your triumphant conclusion in 
abeyance. It is possible that God himself, by his Eternal Spirit, 
may condescend to be the teacher of men, and enlighten their 
understandings to perceive in the Scriptures themselves infalli- 
ble marks of their divine original. That you should so entirely 
have overlooked this hypothesis — which must be overthrown be- 
fore your argument can stand — is a little singular, since it is 
distinctly stated in the very chapter of the Westminster Confes- 
sion to which you have alluded.* 

"The heavens,"we are told, " declare the glory of God, and 
the firmament showeth his handiwork. For the invisible things 
of him from the creation of the world, are clearly seen ; being 
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power 
and Godhead. ,? If the material workmanship of God bears such 
clear and decisive traces of its divine and eternal Author, as to 
leave the atheist and idolater without excuse, who shall say that 
the Word which he has exalted above every other manifestation 
of his name, may not proclaim with greater power and a deeper 
emphasis, that it is indeed the law of his mouth ? Who shall 
say that the composition of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, 
may not be distinguished by a majesty, grandeur, and supernatu- 
ral elevation, which are suited to impress the reader with an 
irresistible conviction, that these venerable documents are the 
true and faithful sayings of God ? Is there any absurdity in 
asserting with a distinguished writer, that " the words of God, 
now legible in the Scriptures, are as much beyond the words of 
men, as the mighty works which Christ did, were above their 
works, and his prophecies beyond their knowledge V Jehovah 
has left the outward universe to speak for itself. Sun, moon and 

* " Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine au- 
thority thereof, (Holy Scriptures,) is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, 
bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts." — Westminster Conf. 
chap. i. 55. 

3* 



42 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

stars, in their appointed orbits, proclaim an eternal Creator, and 
require no body of men, " of individuals in their collective capaci- 
ty," to interpret their voice, or to teach the world that " the hand 
which made them is divine." Why may not the Scriptures, 
brighter and more glorious than the sun, be left in the same way, 
as they run their appointed course, to testify to all that their 
source " was the bosom of God, and their voice the harmony of 
the world?" Is not the character of God as clearly portrayed in 
them, as in the mute memorials of his power which exist around 
us and above us ? Why should an infallible body be required 
to make known the Divine original of the Bible, when it is not 
necessary to establish the creation of the heavens and the earth? 
It is then a possible supposition, that the word of God may be 
its own witness; that the sacred pages may themselves contain 
infallible evidence of their heavenly origin, which shall leave 
those without excuse, who reject or disregard them. They may 
contain the decisive proofs of their own inspiration, and by their 
own light, make good their pretensions to canonical authority. 

The fact that multitudes who hold the Bible in their hand, do 
not perceive these infallible tokens of its supernatural origin, is 
no objection, upon your own principles, to the existence of such 
irrefragable evidence. The reality of the evidence is one thing 
— the power of perceiving it is quite another. It is no objection 
to the brilliancy of the sun, that it fails to illuminate the blind. 
Such is the deplorable darkness of the human understanding, in 
regard to the things that pertain to God, and such the fearful 
alienation of men from the perfection of his character, that 
though the light shines conspicuously among them, they are yet 
unable to comprehend its rays. Hence to the production of faith, 
in order that the evidence, the infallible evidence which actually 
exists, may accomplish its appropriate effects, the " Eternal Spirit, 
who sends forth his cherubim and seraphim to touch the lips of 
whom he pleases," must be graciously vouchsafed to illuminate the 
darkened mind, and remove the impediments of spiritual vision. 
The infallible evidence is in the Scriptures ; the power of perceiv- 
ing it is the gift of God. Your own writers, sir, acknowledge, and 
you among the number, that the infallible evidence which your 
Church professes to present, cannot produce faith without God's 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 43 

grace; so that evidence may be infallible and yet not effectual, 
through the folly and perverseness of men. Bellarmin declares 
that " the arguments which render the articles of our faith credi- 
ble, are not such as to produce an undoubted faith, unless the 
mind be divinely assisted.* And you have told us that the teach- 
ing of your pastors meets with a firmer and readier asssent 
among minds that have been touched by the Spirit of God.f 
Now sir, if your infallible evidence can yet be ineffectual, 
through the blindness and wickedness of men, you cannot say 
that the Scriptures are not infallible witnesses of their own au- 
thority, because all who possess them do not receive their testi- 
mony. In either case the illumination of God's Spirit is the 
means by which faith is really produced. According to you, it 
inclines the understanding to receive the teaching of the pastors 
of your Church — according to the doctrine of the Westminster 
divines; it enlightens the mind to perceive the impressions of 
Jehovah's character and Jehovahs hand, in the sacred oracles 
themselves. 

There is, then, evidently, a fifth supposition by which an 
humble inquirer after truth may be assured of the divine inspi- 
ration and canonical authority of the Holy Scriptures. God, 
himself, may be his teacher, and the illumination of his Spirit 
may be the means by which, from infallible evidence contained 
in the books themselves, their divine inspiration may be cer- 
tainly collected. Whether true or false, right or wrong, this 
has been the doctrine of the Church of God from the beginning.^ 

* " Argumenta quae articulos fidei nostras credibiles faciunt non talia sunt 
ut fidem omnino mdubitatam reddant, nisi mens divinitus adjuvetur." — Be Grat. 
et Lib. Arb. lib. vi. cap. 3. 

t " We should ever bear in mind, too, that if this be the method adopted by- 
Almighty God ; if in reality, as the hypothesis requires, he speaks to that indi- 
vidual through this teacher, His divine grace will influence the mind of the 
novice to yield a more ready and firm assent, than the tendency of our nature, 
and the unaided motives of human authority would produce." — Letter I. 

t Asa specimen of what have been the sentiments of distinguished writers, 
I give a. few extracts, selected from the midst of many others equally striking, 
which may be found arranged in Owen's admirable Discourse on the Reason of 
Faith. — Works, vol. hi. p. 359, seq. The following passage from Clemens 
Alexandrinus is remarkable, as asserting at once the sufficiency of Scripture and 
the right of private judgment in opposition to all human authority ; 



44 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

And before you can hope to overthrow it, you must be prepared 
to prove, what, I think, you will find an irksome undertaking, 
that the Scriptures do not bear any signs or marks characteristic 
of their author, and that God's grace will not be vouchsafed to 

Ov yap cnr\(og ano^aivofxevoig avdpomoig irpoo-e^oiixev oig Kai avTano^aiveOai en tcrjg 
ehvTiv. Et <$' ovk apx ei ^ ovov oinXug eineiv to 6oi;av, aWa nivTwo-acrdai Set to \e^dev' 
ov ty)v s| avdpo)7T(x)v ava[x£vo[A£v jxapTvpiav, a\*\a ty\ tov K.vpiov (poivri niaTOV^eda to ^tov- 
usvov. 'H naaow anoSei^ewv e%eyyvoTepa [xaWov tie rj J fxove anoSei^ig ovaa Tvy^avei. 
OvTOig ovv Kai fj/Aeig an avTaiv nepi uvtgiv twv ypafojv TeXeiwg anode iKvvvTeg eic niaTeog 
7rei9o[xe9a anoSeiKTiKug. — Strom, lib. vii. cap. 16. "For we would not attend or 
give credit simply to the definitions of men, seeing we have a right also to define 
in contradiction unto them. And as it is not sufficient merely to say or assert 
what appears to be the truth, but also to beget a belief of what is spoken, we 
expect not the testimony of men but confirm that which is inquired about with 
the voice of the Lord, which is more full and firm than any demonstration ; 
yea, which rather is the only demonstration. Thus, we, taking our demonstra- 
tion of the Scripture out of the Scripture, are assured by faith as by demon- 
stration." 

Basil on Psalm 115, says: — TliaTig^ ov% J h yeofxeTpixaig avayKaig. aW n raig tov 
nvevjxaTog evepyeiaig eKyivo^eurj. " Faith is not the effect of geometrical demon- 
strations, but of the efficacy of the Spirit." 

Nemes.de Horn. cap. 2. — H tcov Oeiwv Xoyiuv SiSaaKa'Xia rtt nioTov act? eavTrjg 
e^ovaa Sia to deonvevaTov eivai. " The teaching of the divine oracles has its 
credibility from itself, because of their divine inspiration." 

The words of St. Austin (Conf. lib. ii. cap. 3) are too well known to 
require to be cited. 

The second Council of Orange, in the beginning of the sixth century, in its 
5th and 7th canons is explicit to my purpose. Fleury, b. xxxii. 12. — Si quis 
sicut augmentum ita etiam initium fidei, ipsumque credulitatis affectum, non 
per gratiae donum, id est, per inspirationem Spiritus Sancti, corrigentem volun- 
tatem nostram ab infidelitate ad fidem,ab impietate ad pietatem, sed naturaliter 
nobis inesse dicit, apostolicis dogmatibus adversarius approbatur. Si quis per 
naturae vigorem bonum aliquod quod ad salutem pertinet vitae eeternae cogitare 
ut expedit aut eligere, sive salutari, id est, evangelicae praadicationi consentire 
posse affirmat absque illuminatione et inspiratione Spiritus Sancti, qui dat om- 
nibus suavitatem consentiendo et credendo veritati, haeretico fallitur spiritu. 
" If any one say that the beginning or increase of faith and the very affection 
of belief is in us, not by the gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit correcting our will from infidelity to faith, from impiety to piety, but by 
nature, he is an enemy to the doctrine of the Apostles. If any man affirm that 
he can by the vigor of nature think any thing good which pertains to salvation 
as he ought, or choose, or consent to saving, that is, to evangelical preaching 
without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all the 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 45 

the humble inquirer to enable him to perceive, according to the 
prayer of the Psalmist, " wondrous things out of his law." — 
Unless you can disprove this fifth hypothesis, and show it to be 
what you have asserted of three that you have named, neither 
" practicable nor efficient," your triumphant argument vanishes 
into air ; it violates the very first law of that species of complex 

sweet relish in consenting to and believing the truth, he is deceived by an he- 
retical spirit.'' 

Arnobius advers. Gentes, lib. 3, c. l,says : " Neque enim stare sine asserto- 
ribus non potest religio Christiana ] Aut eo esse comprobatur vera, si adstipu- 
latores habuerit plurimos, et auctoritatem ab hominibus sumpserit 1 Suis ilia 
contenta est viribus et veritatis propria? fundaminibus nititur nee spoliatur sua 
vi, etam si nullum habeat vindicem, imrrio si linguae omnes contra faciant con- 
traque nitantur et ad fidem illius abrogandam consensionis unitse animositate 
conspirent." " Shall it be said that the Christian religion cannot maintain 
itself, without the aid of men to vindicate its truth 1 Or shall its truth be 
said to depend on the warranty and authority of man? No, Christianity is 
sufficient for itself, in its own inherent strength, and stands firm upon the ba- 
sis of its own inherent truth ; it could lose none of its power, though it had not 
a single advocate. Nay, it would maintain its ground, though all the tongues 
of men were to contradict and resist it, and to combine with rage and fury to 
eifect its destruction." 

The great Athanasius (Orat. Cont. Gent. c. 1) says: 

A.vrapK£ig eiaiv ai ayiai xai Osottvevstoi ypa<pai npog rr/v rr]g\ akriBeiag a-nrayye\iav. 
" The Christian faith carries within itself the discovery of its own authority^ and 
the Holy Scriptures which God has inspired are all-sufficient in themselves, for 
the evidence of their own truth." There is a beautiful passage to the same 
purport in Baptista Mantuanus de Patient, lib. 3, cap. 2. It concludes & as fol- 
lows : " Cur ergo non omnes credunt evangelio 1 Quod non omnes trahuntur a 
Deo. Sed longa opus est disputatione ] Firmiter sacris Scrip turis ideo credimus 
quod divinam inspirationem intus accepimus." " Why, then, do not all believe 
the Gospel ] Because all are not drawn of God. But what need of any long 
disputation ] We therefore firmly believe the Scripture because we have re- 
ceived a Divine inspiration." Those who wish to find a large collection of 
Patristic passages bearing on this point, will meet with ample satisfaction in 
chap. ix. of Good's Rule of Faith. The whole subject is ably discussed in 
Calvin's Institutes, Owen on the Reason of Faith and his kindred treatise, 
and Halyburton's inimitable essay on the Nature of Faith. Some valuable 
hints may also be found in Lancaster's Bampton Lectures, Jackson on the 
Creed, and Chalmers' Evidences. I cannot forbear, however, to .advert to the 
two beautiful illustrations of the power of the Scriptures to authenticate them- 
selves, which Justin Martyr and Francis Junius have given us in their accounts 
of their own conversion. 



46 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

syllogism to which it may be easily reduced. You have beaten 
your drum, and nourished your trumpets, and shouted victory, 
when you had not been even in reach of the enemy's camp. 
If a man, sir, reasoning upon the seasons of the year, should 
undertake to prove that it must be winter, because it was neither 
spring nor autumn, his argument would be precisely like yours 
for an infallible tribunal of faith. His hearers might well ask 
why it might not be summer, and your readers may well ask why 
this fifth supposition, which you have so strangely suppressed 
when it must have been under your eyes, may not be, after all 
your elaborate discussion, the true method of God. In this an- 
cient doctrine of the Church of God, there may be an escape 
from your fatal dilemma, and men may find a sure and infalli- 
ble passage to heaven without making a journey to Rome to be 
guided in the way. Upon your principles of reasoning, dilem- 
mas are easily made, but very fortunately they are just as easily 
avoided. Their horns, weak and powerless as a papal bull, can- 
not gore the stubborn and refractory. He who should infer that 
a sick man must be scorching with fever because he is not ach- 
ing in all his bones with a shivering ague, would in this pitiful 
foolery present a forcible example of the sort of sophism in 
which you have boasted as triumphant argument. 

2. Your reasoning is not only radically defective in conse- 
quence of an imperfect enumeration of particulars, but fatally un- 
successful in establishing the impossibility of those which you 
have actually undertaken to refute. The minor premiss is as 
lame as the major, and your argument, at best, can yield us 
nothing but a " lame and impotent conclusion." Your fourth 
method derives its claims to our confidence and regard from the 
pretended fact, that all other schemes are neither " practicable 
nor efficient." Unless, therefore, this can be made clearly to 
appear, your reasoning must fall to the ground. Have you 
proved it? So far from it, that the objections which you have 
adduced against your first three methods, apply just as power- 
fully to the fourth; and prove, if they prove any thing, that nei- 
ther one of the methods specified by you, can possibly be the 
truth. The arguments, for instance, which you have employed 
to overthrow the Protestant theory of private judgment, as im- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 47 

plying the responsibility of men for their opinions, and a conse- 
quent exemption from all human authority, may be employed, 
with equal success, to demolish the pretensions of an infallible 
tribunal, or to show that such a body can neither be " practica- 
ble nor efficient." 

Why then is private judgment inadmissible ? Why is it that 
each man is not at liberty to examine for himself, and form his 
own opinions upon those solemn subjects in which his own indi- 
vidual happiness is so deeply concerned ? Because,* according 

* " The arguments in this course," (that is, in determining for one's self,) 
" would be of two classes, external and internal ; either or both of which would 
form matter for investigation. He might seek, as you have endeavored to do, 
whether there exists a sufficient mass of testimony to establish the fact or facts, 
that God did, at certain times and on certain occasions, exercise over particu- 
lar writers, the supernatural influence of inspiration ; or from a consideration 
of the perfection of the Scriptures, he might conclude that they were above the 
power of unaided men, and therefore must be of divine origin. To perform the 
first properly, he must be deeply versed in the Latin, the Greek and the Hebrew, 
perhaps, too, in several modern languages ; must have at his command a more 
extensive library than, I believe, Charleston can boast of ; must spend, conse- 
quently, many long years of study in acquiring those languages, and obtaining 
and searching out the thousand and one testimonies scattered through a hundred 
musty tomes, and in acquiring that thorough knowledge of times, of men, of 
writings, which will enable him to judge of the credibility of those witnesses ; 
must, finally, possess an unrivalled, almost supernatural accuracy of judgment 
to reconcile this mass of conflicting statements, and, distinguishing which are 
worthy and which unworthy of credit, to conclude confidently and evidently, 
in favor of, or against the inspiration of the books examined. The second re- 
quires a thorough acquaintance with the Scriptures in the original Hebrew, 
Greek and Chaldean, and in the ancient versions in Samaritan, Copht, Arabic, 
Syriac, Greek and Latin, and with the ancient manuscripts ; and the ability 
to apply to all this the subtle rules of refined criticism, in order to determine, 
in the first place, as far as can be ascertained, the exact language and mean- 
ing of the sacred writers ; a thorough knowledge of the abilities and acquire- 
ments of each writer, and the state of science and already revealed religion in 
his country and age, in order to see to what extent of perfection his own pow- 
ers with such aids could naturally carry him ; the faculty also, of duly appreci- 
ating the beauties of the sacred writings, and that knowledge of Chemistry, 
of Natural History, of Geology, of the History of Nations, and of almost every 
science, which may enable him fully and satisfactorily to refute all the objec- 
tions brought from these different sources against the intrinsic truth, and con- 
sequently, internal evidence of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. Need 



48 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

to you, unless a man could speak with the tongues of men and 
angels, unless he comprehended all mysteries and all knowledge, 
unless, in other words, his mind was a living encyclopaedia of 
science, he must be incapable of estimating properly the his- 
torical and internal evidences of the divine original of the 
Scriptures. Like the Jewish Cabalists, you have rendered the 
judgments of the people utterly worthless to them in that mat- 
ter, which, of all others, is most important to their happiness. 
Maimonides * goes a little beyond you. He not only makes 
Logic, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy indispensable to our 
progress in divine knowledge, but absolutely necessary in order 
to settle the foundation of religion in the being and attributes of 
God; and according to him, those who are unfurnished with 
these scientific accomplishments, must either settle down into 
dreary atheism, or make up their deficiencies by submitting im- 
plicitly to cabalistical instruction ! You, I presume, would 
grant that a man could be assured of the existence of the Deity, 
without an intimate acquaintance with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
Syriac, Chaldee, and divers modern tongues, or without being 
master of Mathematics, Chemistry, Geology, Natural History and 
Physics. These things, on your scheme, are only necessary to 
settle the inspiration of the Scriptures. 

Let us grant, for a moment, that all this immense apparatus 
of learning is necessary to settle a plain, simple, historical fact ; 
what becomes of the skill and competency of your infallible 
body ? If it is to decide according to the evidence, and all these 
boundless attainments are absolutely requisite in order to a just 
appreciation of the evidence, every individual member of your 
unerring corps must be deeply versed in all human lore, as well 
as blessed with an " almost supernatural accuracy of judgment," 
before the body can be qualified, according to your statements, 
to make an infallible decision. Suppose, sir, Europe and Amer- 
ica were ransacked, how many individuals could be found, each 
of whom should possess the varied and extensive attainments 
which you make indispensable in settling a plain question of fact 

I say, it is all important that he should be able to possess and peruse the books, 
on whose inspiration he is thus to decide V — Letter I 
* More Neboch,pars i. c. 34. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 49 

connected with the events of an earlier age? How many of 
the pastors of the Church of Rome would be entitled to a seat 
in a general council composed only of those who could abide 
your test of competency to decide on matters of faith ? Certain 
it is, sir, that there was not a single individual in the whole 
Council of Trent, who possessed even a tithe of the learning 
without which, in your view, an accurate decision is hopeless. 
As we have already seen, those holy Fathers seemed to be fully 
persuaded that 

" Hebrew roots were only found 
To nourish best in barren ground." 

Their skill in Samaritan, Coptic, Arabic, and Syriac versions, 
may be readily conjectured from their profound acquaintance 
with the original text. If they were deeply versed in the mys- 
teries of Chemistry and Geology, they must have been endowed 
with an extraordinary prolepsis which has no parallel in the 
recorded history of man. How, then, could these venerable 
men decide with " absolute certainty ," when all the evidence in 
the case was high above, out of their reach ? You tell us, sir, 
that they made their decision " after patient examination, and a 
thorough investigation of all the evidence they could find on the 
subject. " But yet, upon your own showing, the historical and 
internal proofs of inspiration were inaccessible not only to the 
prelates themselves, but to the whole rabble of divines who 
assisted them in their deliberations. How does it happen, then, 
that their decision is entitled to be received with absolute cer- 
tainty? But perhaps you will say that the Fathers possessed 
some other evidence — that they themselves were super naturally 
inspired, or irresistibly guided by God's grace to make an un- 
erring decision ? To say nothing of the fact that your argu- 
ment, in order to be conclusive, requires you to show that the 
same supernatural assistance cannot be vouchsafed to individuals 
as well as to a body, I would simply ask how could the Fathers 
know that they were inspired? You have made all human 
hioivledge a necessary means of judging of inspiration. A man 
must be able " to refute all the objections brought from these 
different sources against the intrinsic truth, and, consequently, 



50 ROMANTST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

internal evidence of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures." 
If then, a man cannot be satisfied of the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, until he is able to perceive the intrinsic truth of their 
teachings, that is, until he can show that scientific objections 
are really groundless, how can he be satisfied of his own inspi- 
ration, until he can, in like manner, determine that the propo- 
sitions suggested to him are not contradictory to any truth 
received or taught in the wide circle of human science? And 
how I beseech you, can the people be assured that any body of 
men has been supernaturally guided, until they are able to refute 
all the objections from all the departments of human knowledge 
to the decrees of the body ? Will you say that inspiration, once 
settled, answers all objections? Very true. But how is the 
inspiration to be settled ? You say that an individual cannot 
judge of inspiration until he is able to refute all objections and 
to defend the truths that profess to be inspired. No more, I 
apprehend, can a body of individuals. But a body of individuals 
may be inspired to judge of the inspiration of others. But how 
are they to determine their own inspiration? They must still 
be able to refute all possible objections, and perceive the intrin- 
sic truth of what they are taught, themselves, or their own 
inspiration is uncertain, and the people need it just as much to 
judge of the inspiration of a council as of the inspiration of the 
Scriptures. So that your circle of science becomes necessary 
sooner or later for a body of men, if it be necessary for a private 
individual. 

You perceive, then, that your argument against the rights 
of the people may be turned with a desolating edge against 
yourself. Like an unnatural mother, it devours its own conclu- 
sion. If, sir, the infallibility of a body depends upon the illumi- 
nation of God's Spirit, it will be hard to show why God can 
supernaturally enlighten every man in a special assembly, and 
yet be unable to enlighten private individuals in their separate 
capacity. How the mere fact of human congregation, under 
any circumstances, can confer additional power upon God's 
Holy Spirit, you have nowhere explained, and I think that you 
will hardly undertake the task. 

Upon your own showing, then, your triumphant argument is a 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 51 

beggarly sophism. Your objections to private judgment prove 
too much, and therefore prove nothing. Whatever is simply 
necessary to establish inspiration, applies as much to the inspira- 
tion of Trent, as to the inspiration of David, Isaiah, and Paul. 
As I am now exclusively engaged in the examination of your 
argument, I shall not turn aside from my purpose to indicate the 
manner in which a plain, unlettered man can become morally 
certain, from the historical and collateral evidences of inspira- 
tion, that the authors of the Bible wrote as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost Your long, involved, and intricate account of 
the learning and attainments required for this end, could easily 
be shown, and has been triumphantly shown, to be a mere phan- 
tom of the brain. You are fond, sir, of raising imaginary dif- 
ficulties in the way of the humble inquirer after truth, in order 
that you may find a ready market for the wares of Rome. But 
in this instance, sir, your own feet have been caught in the pit 
which your hands have dug. When you condescend to inform 
me how the Fathers of Trent could decide with infallible cer- 
tainty upon the inspiration of the Scriptures, without the learning 
which is necessary, in your view, to understand the evidence, 
if they themselves were uninspired — or how, if inspired, they 
could, without this learning, either be certain themselves of the 
fact or establish it with infallible certainty to the mass of the peo- 
ple, who, without your learning, must judge of the inspiration of 
the holy Council — when consistently with your principles you 
resolve these difficulties, one of the objections to your argument 
will cease. Until then it must continue to be a striking example 
of that sort of paralogism by which the same premises prove and 
disprove at the same time. 

3. But, sir, the chapter of your misfortunes is not yet closed. 
Your favorite, triumphant, oft-repeated argument not only labors 
under the two serious and fatal defects which have already been 
illustrated, but, what is just as bad, even upon the supposition 
that it is logically sound/'it fails to answer your purpose. It 
does not yield you, what your cause requires, an infallible con- 
clusion. At its best estate, it is a broken reed, which can only 
pierce the bosom of him that leans on it. You infer that 
a certain plan must be the true one, because all others are 



52 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

false. It is evident that it must be absolutely certain, that the 
others are false, before it can be absolutely certain that the one 
insisted on is true. The degree of certainty which attaches to 
any hypothesis drawn from the destruction of all other supposi- 
tions, is just the degree of certainty with which the others have 
been removed. The measure of their falsehood is the measure 
of its truth. If there be any probability in them, that probability 
amounts to a positive argument against the conclusion erected 
on their ruins. 

Now, sir, upon the gratuitous assumption that your argu- 
ment is legitimate and regular, your conclusion cannot be In- 
fallible, unless it is absolutely certain that the three methods of 
determining the inspiration of the Scriptures which you have 
pronounced to be neither " practicable nor efficient," are grossly 
and palpably absurd. They must be unquestionably false, or 
your conclusion cannot be unquestionably true. If there be the 
least degree of probability in favor of any one of these schemes, 
that probability, however slight, is fatal to the infallible certainty 
required by your cause. Your conclusion, in such a case, can 
only result from a comparison of opposing probabilities ; it can 
only have a preponderance of evidence, and, therefore, can only 
be probable at best. 

I venture to assert upon the approved principles of papal 
casuistry, that two, most certainly, of your condemned suppo- 
sitions are just as likely to be true, or can, at least, be as harm- 
lessly adopted as that which you have taken into favor. We are 
told by your doctors, that a probable opinion may be safely fol- 
lowed, and their standard of probability is the approbation of a 
doctor or the example of the good — " Sufficit opinio alicujus 
gravis doctoris, aut bonorum exemplum." 

Try your third supposition by this standard, and does it not 
become exceedingly probable? Why have you passed it over 
with so vague, superficial, and unsatisfactory a notice? Were 
you afraid that there was death in tffe pot? You, surely, sir, 
cannot be ignorant that scores of your leading divines have boldly 
maintained the infallibility of the Pope — a single individual, 
whom they have regarded as divinely commissioned to instruct 
the faithful. The Council of Florence decided that the Pope 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 53 

was primate of the Universal Church; that he is the true Lieu- 
tenant of Christ — the father and teacher of all Christians; and 
that unto him full power is committed to feed, direct, and govern 
the Catholic Church under Christ. He, then, it would seem, is 
the very individual to whom that Council would refer us for 
satisfactory information concerning the canon of Scripture and 
every other point of faith. The prelates of the Lateran Council 
under Leo X. offered the most fulsome and disgusting flatteries 
to that skeptical Pontiff, calling him King of Kings, and Mon- 
arch of the earth, and ascribing to him all power, above all 
powers of heaven and earth. The Legates of Trent would not 
permit the question of the Pope's authority to be discussed ; be- 
cause the Pontiff himself, while he was yet ignorant of the tem- 
per of the Fathers, was secretly afraid that they might follow the 
examples of Constance and Basil. Pighius, Gretser, Bellarmin, 
and Gregory of Valentia, have ascribed infallibility to the head 
of your Church, in the most explicit and unmeasured terms.* 

* Gregory of Valentia, carried the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope so 
far, as to maintain that his decisions were unerring, whether made with care 
and attention or not. His words are : 

" Sive Pontifex, in definiendo studium adhibeat, sive non adhibeat ; modo 
tamen controversiam definiat, infallibiliter certe definiet, atque adeo re ipsa uti- 
tur authoritate sibi a Christo concessa." — Analy's Fid. Q, 6. " Whether the 
Pontiff apply care and attention or not in his determinations, yet, provided he 
is determining controversy, his decisions are certainly infallible, and so in reality 
he uses the authority granted him by Christ." 

Augustinus Triumphus observes : " Novum symbolum condere solum ad 
Papam spectat, quia est caput fldei Christiana?, cujus auctoritate omnia quae ad 
fidem spectant firmantur et roborantur." — Q. 59, Art. 1. " To compose a new 
creed pertains to the Pope alone, because he is the head of the Christian faith, 
by whose authority all things pertaining to faith are confirmed." 

This same writer, treating of ecclesiastical power, observes again : " Error 
est non credere Pontificem Romanum universalis ecclesiae pastorem, Petri suc- 
cessorem, et Christi Vicarium, supra temporalia et spiritualia universalem non 
habere primatum, in quern, quandoque multi labuntur, dictae potestatis igno- 
rantise, qua? cum sit infmita eo quod magnus est dominus et magna virtus ejus 
et magnitudinis ejus non est finis, omnis creatus intellectus in ejus persecutatione 
invenitur deficere." " It is an error not to believe that the Roman Pontiff, the pas- 
tor of the Church universal, the successor of Peter and vicar of Christ, has not a 
universal primacy over things temporal and spiritual ; into which error many 
are apt to fall through ignorance of said power, which is infinite, because great 



54 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

It is generally understood, too, that this doctrine is maintained 
by the whole body of the Jesuits. To my mind, wicked and 
blasphemous as it is, this is a less exceptionable doctrine than 
that which you have defended. A single individual can be more 
easily reached, more prompt in his decisions, and is always 
ready to answer the calls of the faithful. To collect a council 
is a slow and tedious process, and the infallibility slumbers while 
the Council is dissolved. 

The infallibility of a single individual, which is your third hy- 
pothesis, is probable upon the well known principles of your most 
distinguished casuists. You ought to have shown, therefore, 
that this opinion is palpably absurd. Write a book upon this 
subject and send it to Rome, and it may possibly lead to your 
promotion in the Church. However, let Gregory XVI. be first 
gathered to his fathers, as he might not brook so flat a contradic- 
tion to his own published opinions.* I am inclined to think that, 

is the Lord and great is his might, and of his greatness there is no bound ; there - 
fore every created understanding must fail in the searching of him." — Pr&f. P. 
John 22. But the climax of absurdity and blasphemy is fairly reached in the 
following passage from Bellarmin, De Pont, 4, 1 : " Si autem Papa erraret 
praecipiendo vitia, vel prohibendo virtutem, teneretur ecclesia credere vitia esse 
bona et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare." The plain 
meaning is, if the Pope should command men to violate God's laws, they are 
bound to do it. In other words, the Pope is above the Almighty. 

Scores of passages to the like effect maybe collected from the writings of 
the Popes themselves. 

*- I have before me the French translation of a book, written by the present 
Pontiff, when he was Cardinal Maur Coppellari, entitled the Triumph of the 
Holy See and of the Church, in which the dogma of the Pope's infallibility is 
fully and curiously discussed. His Holiness repudiates, with horror, the Gal- 
lican doctrine of the superiority of Councils, and stoutly maintains that the gov- 
ernment of the Church is an absolute monarchy, of which the Pontiff is the in- 
fallible head. It is a little singular that A. P. F. should dismiss with contempt, 
as unworthy of discussion, the precise opinions which his master at*Rome holds 
to be essential to the stability of the faith ; and whether the real doctrine of 
the Papacy is more likely to be gathered from an obscure priest or from the 
supreme Father of the faithful, I leave it to the reader to determine. As a 
specimen of the Pope's book, I give two extracts at random, as they may be 
found in the French version of Abbe Jammes : 

" Le Pape, ainsi qu' il a ete prouve, est un vrai monarque ; done il doit 
etre pourvu des moyens necessaires a 1' exercice de son autorite monarchique. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 55 

to the majority of papal minds, there is so much probability in 
this third opinion, that if your letter had been written by a Jesuit 
at Rome, it would in fact, have been made the infallible conclu- 



Mais le moyen le plus necessaires a cette fin sera celui qui otera tout pre- 
texte a ses sujets de refuser de se soumettre a ses decisions et a ses lois, et son 
infaillibilite seule peut avoir cette efficacite. Done le Pape est infaillible." — 
Prelim. Dis. Vol. I. p. 174, § 82. 

" Quoique, apres tous ce qui a ete dit jusqu' a present, il ne dut pas etre 
necessaire de rien ajouter d' avantage, je chercherai encore a les tirer de leurs 
erreurs pas des argumens plus pressans. Parmi toutes les societes, celle-la 
seule est infaillible, qui constitute la veritable Eglise ; c' est de foi : mais il n' y 
a pas de veritable Eglise sans Pierre ; nous 1' avons demontre : done P infailli- 
bilite appartiens exclusivemens a la societe qui est unie a Pierre et a ses succes- 
seurs. Or cette union avec Pierre ou avec le Pape ne serait pas une note suf- 
fisante pour distinguer entre plusieurs societes celle qui serait infaillible, si cette 
union ne contribuait en quelque maniere pas son concours a faire jouir cette so- 
ciete du privilege de 1' infaillibilite ; done cette doit reelment y contribuer et y 
concourir. Mais V Eglise doit avoir, sans ses definitions, une infaillibilite per- 
petuelle et durable jusqu' a la fin des siecles ; done la meme perpetuite, la meme 
duree jusqu' a la fin des siecles doit etre assuree au concours de cette union de 
1' Eglise avec le Pape, a lequelle est attachee l'infaillibilite de V Eglise elle-meme. 
D' ou il s' ensuit que, dans le cas d' un point quelconque a definer, il sera aussi 
vrai de dire, avant meme qu' il ait lieu que ce concours positif et explicite ne 
manquera pas, qu' il est vrai de dire que 1' Eglise est infaillible dans le decisions 
qu' elle portera, et qu' elle ne tombera pas dans 1' erreur. Mais, s' il est certain 
que, toutes les fois qu' il s' agira de definir un point de foi, on pourra compter 
sar le concours de Punion de 1' Eglise avec le Pape, il doit etre egalement cer- 
tain que Dieu ne permettra jamais que le Pape ne donne pas son assentiment 
a des verites de foi, puisque, sans ses assentiment, il ne saurait y avoir de veri- 
table definition de 1' Eglise. Done, si ce concours doit etre continuel et per- 
petuel, Dieu devra continuellement et perpetuellement incliner le Pape a don- 
ner son assentiment aux verites de foi ; et il ne permettra jamais que la Pape, 
comme tel, s' eloigne de la vraie croyance. En effet, s' il y en etait pas ainsi, 
et que Dieu put permettre que le Pape, en cette qualite abandonnat la verite, il 
pourrait arriver que par sa primante dans 1' Eglise, et par le droit qu' il a pour 
le maintien de P unite, comme dit saint Thomas, de proposer le point de foi, il 
entrainat 1' Eglise avec lui dans 1* erreur. Done Dieu a du accorder au Pape, 
comme tel, le privilege d' une infaillibilite independante de F Eglise, independ- 
ante de cette societe, a 1' infaillibilite de laquelle il contribue et concours par le 
moyen de 1' union de celle-ce avec lui. Les novateurs ne peuvent rejiter cette 
consequence sans la necessite du concours du Pape ; et s' ils la nient, ils se ran- 
gent parmi les schismatiques et les protestans, que se font une Eglise separee du 
Pape."— Vol. 1, chap. 2,pp 206-8. 



56 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

sion. Certain it is that you have not offered a single argument 
against it. You play off upon Esdras and the Jewish Sanhedrim, 
and sundry questions which " more veteran scholars than you " 
have found it hard to decide, and then conclude with inimitable 
self-complacency, that the " third method cannot be admitted." 
Sir, when you write again, let me beseech you to write in syllo- 
gisms. If you have disproved the infallibility of the Pope, I can- 
not find your premises ; and yet, unless you have done it, your 
triumphant conclusion is a mere pctitio principii. Your own 
Doctors will rise up against you if you undertake this task — you 
are self condemned if you do not. 

Then again, your first hypothesis — the theory of private 
judgment — must have some little probability in its favor, or such 
mighty minds as those of Newton, Bacon, Locke and Chilling- 
worth, would not have adopted it with so much cordiality, nor 
would such multitudes of the race have sealed their regard for it 
at the stake, the gibbet, and the wheel. A principle, confessedly 
the keystone that supports the arch of religious liberty ; which 
emancipates the human mind from ghostly tyranny, and calls 
upon the nations to behold their God ; which lies at the founda- 
tion of the glorious fabric of American freedom, and distinguish- 
es the constitutions of all our States, is not to be dismissed with- 
out examination as grossly false, or palpably absurd. The condi- 
tions which you have prescribed for its exercise, are not only 
arbitrary and capable of being turned to capital advantage against 
you, but as I shall show, when I come to the examination of 
your second argument, they have been virtually withdrawn by 
yourself. You have actually admitted, sir, all that the friends of 
private judgment deem to be important in the case. According 
to your own statement, the ignorant and unlearned may be as- 
sured, upon sufficient grounds, of the genuineness and authentici- 
ty of the books of the New Testament. This foundation being 
laid, inspiration will naturally follow. So that, notwithstanding 
all your objections, private judgment remains unaffected, in the 
strength and glory of its intrinsic probability. 

How then, upon a just estimate of its merits, stands your 
boasted argument? Why, there are only four suppositions that 
can be made in the case. The first and third of these are so 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 57 

extremely probable that millions of the human race have believed 
them to be true. Therefore the fourth must be infallibly cer- 
tain! Weighed in the balances of logical propriety, the infalli- 
ble certainty of your conclusion turns out to be like Berkely's 
"vanishing ghosts of departed quantities.' , 



LETTER IV. 



It is just as easy to prove the Inspiration of the Scriptures as the Infallibility of any Church. 

We owe it to the goodness of God that the most corrupt and 
dangerous principles are not unfrequently combined in the same 
person with a confusion of understanding which effectually de- 
stroys their capacity of mischief, and renders the triumph of truth 
more illustrious and complete. Error, in fact, is so multiform 
and various, so heterogeneous in its parts, and mutually repulsive 
in its elements, that it requires a mind of extraordinary power 
to construct a fabric of such discordant materials that has even 
the appearance of regularity and order. Truth, on the other 
hand, is simple and uniform. Her body, like that of the beau- 
tiful Osiris, is composed of homogeneous and well-adjusted parts ; 
and as, in the progress of discovery, or the light of patient inves- 
tigation, limb is added to limb, and member to member, the mind 
perceives in the harmony of the proportions, and the exquisite 
symmetry of the form, a mysterious charm which, like the magic 
of musical enchantment, chains its sympathies, and captivates 
its powers. The fascinations of falsehood are essentially distin- 
guished from the " divine, enchanting ravishment" of truth, by 
their peculiar effects upon the health and vigor of the soul. 
Whatever pleasure they administer is like the profound slumber 
produced by powerful drugs or stupifying potions, in which the 
joys that are experienced are the unnatural results of a temporary 
delirium ; or, as Milton expresses it, of that " sweet madness " in 
which the soul is robbed of its energies, and rendered impotent 
for future exertion ; but "the sober certainty of waking bliss — a 

4 



58 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

sacred and homefelt delight " — a manly and solid satisfaction, 
which at once refreshes and invigorates the mind, belongs exclu- 
sively to the province of truth. Hence philosophy, which is only 
another name for the love of truth, was warmly commended 
among the ancient sages, as the health and medicine of the soul ; 
the choicest gift of heaven, and the richest jewel of earth. False- 
hood, however it may exhilarate, always confounds ; and the 
stimulus, however powerful, which it may impart to the faculties 
of the mind, can produce nothing more substantial or real, than 
the vain phantoms of a sick man's dream. Hence defences of 
error are almost always inconsistent with themselves, and the 
advocate of truth has often no harder task than to place the dif- 
ferent statements of the sophist or deceiver in immediate juxta- 
position, and leave them, in their war of contradictions, to demol- 
ish the system which their master had laboriously toiled to erect: 
The most finished productions of superstition, infidelity, and 
atheism, when resolved into their constituent parts, are found to 
be wanting in that beautiful consistency which springs from the 
bosom of God, and which is written, as if by the finger of Hea- 
ven, upon every system of truth. 

Without intending to degrade your understanding, you must 
permit me to call your attention to the fact, that the different 
portions of your own composition are " like two prevaricating 
witnesses, who flatly contradict each other, though neither of them 
speaks the truth." In your zeal to demolish the foundations of 
faith, you were permitted, in the righteous providence of God, 
to become involved in a maze of contradictions, which can have 
no other effect than to draw down upon you the pity and con- 
tempt of your readers. This confusion of ideas, is not perhaps 
to be attributed so much to native imbecility of mind, as to the 
nature of. the cause which, with more zeal than prudence, you 
undertook to defend. Consistency cannot be expected from the 
advocates of a black and bloody superstition, which sprang from 
the father of lies, whose appropriate element is darkness, and 
whose legitimate effect upon the life, is to form a character 
homogeneous in nothing but implacable enmity to God. We are 
not to be astonished, therefore, to find that your elaborate de- 
fence of the infallibility of a body, which solemnlv sanctioned 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 59 

one of the most deliberate and atrocious frauds* that ever dis- 
graced the annals of mankind, should be so ill-conceived and so 
awkwardly adjusted in its parts, as to resemble nothing more 
distinctly than the monstrous picture with which Horace opens 
his epistle to the Pisos. They who receive not the truth in the 
love of it, are smitten with such madness, blindness and aston- 
ishment of heart, as to grope at noonday, even as the blind grop- 
eth in darkness, and to feel for the wall in the full blaze of the 
meridian sun. The blandishments of error, like the subtle 
allurements of Samson's wife, may rob the noblest genius of its 
strength, and leave it in the midst of its enemies, dark, dark, 
irrecoverably dark. I am far from contemplating such instances 
of mental eclipse with feelings of exultation or delight. There 
cannot be a more appalling spectacle in nature, than a mind in 
ruins : and in the righteous severity of God, which visits the 

* " When John Huss, the Bohemian Reformer, was arrested, cast into 
prison, and publicly burnt alive at Constance, in spite of a safe-conduct given 
him by the Emperor Sigismund, merely because he refused to belie his 
conscience by abjuring his pretended heresy, all was executed under the eyes, 
and by the express authority, of the Council, who solemnly decreed that the 
safe-conduct of the Emperor ought to be considered as no impediment to the 
exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but that, notwithstanding, it was perfectly 
competent for the ecclesiastical judge to take cognizance of his errors and to 
punish them agreeably to the dictates of justice, although he presented himself 
before them in dependence upon that protection, but for which he would have 
declined appearing. Nor were they satisfied with this impious decision alone. 
Because murmurs were heard on account of the violation of a legal protection, 
they had the audacity to add, that since the said John Huss had, by impugning 
the orthodox faith, forfeited every privilege, and since no promise or faith was 
binding, either by human or divine right, in prejudice of the Catholic faith, the 
said Emperor had done as became his royal majesty in violating his safe-con- 
duct, and that whoever, of any rank or sect, dares to impugn the justice of the 
holy council, or of his majesty, in relation to their proceedings with John Huss, 
shall be punished without hope of pardon, as a favorer of heretical depravity, 
and guilty of the crime of high treason." — Hall, vol. iv. p. 245. L'Enfanfs 
Council of Constance. 

The third Council of Lateran, Canon XVI., decreed that all oaths contrary 
to the utility of the Church and to the institutions of the Fathers, are to be 
regarded as perjuries, and therefore not to be kept. " Non enim dicenda sunt 
juramenta, sed potius perjuria, quae contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam et sanc- 
torum patrum renitent instituta." 



60 



ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 



advocates of error by sealing up the intellectual eyeball in im- 
penetrable night, we may learn the awful majesty of truth, and 
the tremendous danger of trifling with the light. This disastrous 
judgment is the portentous herald of a deeper woe. It is, there- 
fore, with feelings of the profoundest pity, and with the most 
heartfelt reciprocation of your prayer on my behalf, that I am 
now compelled to expose that tissue of inconsistencies, contra- 
dictions, and unwarrantable assumptions, which constitutes your 
second argument ; and if, sir, you shall be made to to feel, as I 
sincerely trust that you may, that you have been only weaving a 
tangled web of sophistry and deceit, you should take a salutary 
warning, and before you finally stumble on the dark mountains, 
contemplate the severity of God in them that fall. 

Your object is to exhibit the historical grounds for believing, 
that God has in fact established, through Jesus Christ, a com- 
missioned delegate from Heaven, " a body of individuals, to 
whom, in their collective capacity, He has given authority to 
make an unerring decision" on the subject of Jhe Canon.* 

* " One of such a body presenting himself to instruct a Christian or an 
infidel would first inform him, that a number of years ago, a person known by 
the name of Jesus Christ, appeared in Judea, and established a new religion. — 
Sufficient motives of credibility can easily be brought forward to induce the 
novice to believe this. He proceeds to state that Christ proved his heavenly 
commission to do so, by frequent, public, and manifest miracles. It will not 
require much to establish in those works certain striking characteristics, of 
themselves clearly indicative of a miraculous nature. Hence, common sense 
is forced to conclude that the religion established by Christ was Divine, 
springing from God, and binding on man. So far, we find nothing above or 
contrary to the means and understanding even of an Indian or negro. Our 
instructor then states, that Christ, in order to secure the extension of His reli- 
gion to every people, and its perpetuation to the end of time, selected from 
among His followers certain persons, who, with their successors, were, in His 
name, and by the same authority as He possessed, to go forth and teach all na- 
tions all that He had Himself taught in Judea. (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20.) Such a 
delegation is by no means unnatural or strange, and there could be found no 
novice, however rude and uncultivated, whose mind could not grasp it, and 
who would not be led to believe it, on sufficiently credible testimony. 

" The next lesson will be, that the Saviour assured them that they would 
be opposed, that others would rise up to teach errors, whom He sent not, and 
that some of their own number would fall away ; but that God would recall 
to their minds all things He had taught them (Jno. xiv. 26) ; that He would 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 61 

These historical proofs, you inform us, contain nothing that 
transcends the means, or surpasses the understanding, even of an 
Indian or a negro. Now, what are these historical proofs, and 
whence are they derived 1 The recorded facts of the New 
Testament, received on the authority of the Apostles and Evan- 
gelists ! You appeal to " certain histories written by persons 
who lived at the same time with the Saviour, and were for years 
in daily and intimate intercourse with him, and the accuracy of 
whose reports is universally acknowledged, and can be easily 
substantiated.'' In other words, the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the books of the New Testament are matters so simple 
and plain, that there is nothing in the evidence " above or con- 
trary to the means and understanding of an Indian or a negro." 



send them the Spirit of truth, who should abide with them for ever (Jno. xiv. 
16, 17), and should teach them all truth (Jno. xiv. 26 ; xvi. 13) ; that He 
himself would be with them while fulfilling that commission, all days, even to 
the consummation of the world (Matt, xxviii. 20), and that the gates of hell 
— the fiercest conflicts of enemies — -should never prevail against that Church 
(Matt. xvi. 18), which He had sent them to found, and ever to instruct. For 
stronger and more explicit evidence of this, he might, if necessary and con- 
venient, recur to certain histories, written by persons who lived at the same 
time with the Saviour, and were for years in daily and intimate intercourse with 
Him, who could not mistake such simple points, and the accuracy of whose 
reports is universally acknowledged, and can be easily substantiated. ' All 
this/ replies the novice, ' my own common sense would lead me to expect. 
The persecutions and errors you refer to, are but the natural workings of the 
passions of men, such as experience shows them in every day life. It would 
be strange, indeed, that while men change and contradict every thing else, 
they should not seek to change and contradict God's doctrines and precepts 
too. If He willed that the Religion of Christ, that is, that the doctrines He 
revealed, should be ever preached and believed ; the precepts He gave, ever 
announced and obeyed ; it was necessary to make some adequate provision 
against this error, and change-seeking tendency of man. If those doctrines 
and precepts are to be learned from persons He appointed to teach in His name 
and by His authority, as delegates whom, in virtue of the power given Him, 
He sent, as He was sent by the Father, that provision must evidently and ne- 
cessarily be directed to preserve the purity of their teaching — to preserve that 
body of teachers, by the power of God, from error, and to make them, in fact, 
teach all things whatsoever He had taught them. Unaided reason almost 
assures me this is the course the Saviour would adopt. The evidence you 
lay before me is satisfactory and worthy of credit — I assent.' " — Letter I. 



62 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

These books contain satisfactory proof of the miracles of Christ 
— these miracles establish His divine commission, and conse- 
quently, impart divine authority to whatever he enjoined, and as 
a body of infallible teachers, to be perpetuated to the end of time, 
was His provision for preserving His truth pure in the world, 
that arrangement unquestionably possessed the sanction of God. 
Such is your argument. Now, sir, if the books of the New 
Testament are to be received as credible testimony to the mira- 
cles of Christ, why not on the subject of their own inspiration ? 
Are you not aware, that the great historical " argument on which 
Protestants rely, in proving the inspiration of the Scriptures, 
presupposes only the genuineness of the books, and the credi- 
bility " of their authors ? You have, yourself, admitted that 
tho teaching of the Apostles was supernaturally protected from 
error ; and if their oral instructions were dictated by the Holy 
Ghost, why should that august and glorious visitant desert them 
when they took the pen to accomplish the same object, when ab- 
sent, which, when present, they accomplished by the tongue ?* 
They, themselves, declare that their writings possessed the same 
authority with their oral instructions. Peterf ranks the Epistles 
of Paul with the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which were 
confessed to be inspired ; and Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to 
hold fast the traditions which they had received from him, either 
by word or epistle.^. If, then, the credibility of these books is 
a matter so plain and palpable, and can be so " easily substan- 

* " We have seen how fully gifted the Apostles were for the business of 
their mission. They worked miracles, they spake with tongues, they explained 
mysteries, they interpreted prophecies, they discerned the true from the false 
pretences to the Spirit ; and all this for the temporary and occasional discharge 
of their ministry. Is it possible, then, to suppose them to be deserted by their 
Divine Enlightener when they sat down to the other part of their work, to 
frame a rule for the lasting service of the Church ? Can we believe that that 
Spirit, which so bountifully assisted them in their assemblies, had withdrawn 
himself when they retired to their private oratories : or that when their speech 
was with all power, their writings should convey no more than the weak and 
fallible dictates of human knowledge 1 To suppose the endowments of the 
Spirit to be so capriciously bestowed, would make it look more like a mockery 
than a gift." — Warburton, Doct. of Grace, book i. chap. 5. 

t 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16. X 2 Thess. ii. 15. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUS3ED AND REFUTED. 63 

tiated" and such is your concession, what need of Hebrew, 
Greek, Latin, Syriac, Chaldee, and divers modern tongues, to- 
gether with Geology, Chemistry, Natural History, and almost 
every science, to make out their inspiration ? They assert it, 
and they are to be believed; therefore one would think they 
might be believed by a simple, unlettered man, without being 
master of a library of which Charleston, and perhaps Columbia, 
is too poor to boast ! I had always thought that the only diffi- 
culty in making out the external proof of inspiration, was in 
establishing the credibility of the books which profess to be in- 
spired. It had struck me that if it were once settled, that their 
own testimony was to be received, the matter was at an end. 
But it seems now, that the credibility of a witness is no proof 
that he speaks the truth, and though " the accuracy of his state- 
ments can be easily substantiated, even to the mind of an Indian 
or a negro," there is one fact, about which he cannot be be- 
lieved, except by a man who carries all the learning of Europe 
and America in his head. Nay, with all the advantages of a 
" larger library than Charleston can boast of;" with the tongues 
alike of the dead and living ; with universal science pour- 
ing her treasures in boundless profusion at his feet ; with an 
almost "supernatural accuracy of judgment," added to their 
other marvellous accomplishments, it is still doubtful whether, in 
the way of private judgment, a man could ever be assured that 
credible books were to be believed on the subject of their origin.* 
But just let one of an infallible body present himself before a 
Christian or an infidel — an Indian or negro, and how changed 
the scene ! As if at the waving of a wizard's wand, the mists 
are dispelled, the shadows disappear, a flood of light removes all 
lingering doubt, and an infant mind can surmount those giant 
difficulties which " veteran scholars" and " sage philosophers " 
were unable to subdue. This teacher can achieve these mighty 
wonders before it is proved that he belongs to an unerring band — 
there is magic in his voice. Just let him ope his ponderous lips 

* " Whether any investigation in either or both classes (that is, of external 
and internal evidence) carried on even under the most favorable circumstances, 
will unerringly prove the inspiration of any books of the Scripture, I leave to 
be mooted by those who choose to undertake the task/' — Letter I. 



64 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

and give the word, and the sun of the Scriptures no longer 
" looks through the horizontal misty air, shorn of his beams ; no 
longer stands in awful eclipse scattering disastrous twilight 
over half the nations," but shines out in the full effulgence of 
meridian day. 

It is strange to me, that you did not perceive the egregious 
absurdity of attempting to establish the infallible authority of a 
body of individuals upon historical grounds, when you denied the 
possibility of proving the infallible authority of the Scriptures 
by the same process. 

The evidence in both cases is precisely of the same nature. 
The inspiration of Rome turns upon a promise which is said to 
have been made nearly two thousand years ago — the inspiration 
of the New Testament turns upon facts which are said to have 
transpired at the same time. Both the promises and the facts are 
to be found, if found at all, in this very New Testament. Now, 
how does it happen, that when the point to be proved, is the pre- 
tended promise made to the pastors of Rome, the New Testa- 
ment becomes amazingly accurate, and the proofs of its credibil- 
ity are neither above nor contrary to the means or understand- 
ing of an Indian or a negro ? But, when the point to be proved 
is the facts which establish the inspiration of the writers, then 
the New Testament becomes involved in a cloud of uncertainty, 
which no human learning is able to remove. Your argument, 
sir, has certainly placed you in a sad dilemma. You cannot 
make out the historical proofs of Papal infallibility, without mak- 
ing out at the same time the historical proofs of Scriptural in- 
spiration. Both must be traced through the same channels to 
the age of the Apostles. 

Now, sir, one of two things must be true ; either the credi- 
bility of the Scriptures can be substantiated to a plain unlettered 
man, or it cannot. If it can be, then there is no need of your 
infallible body to authenticate their inspiration, since that mat- 
ter can be easily gathered from their own pages. If it cannot, 
then your argument from the Scriptures, to an Indian or a negro, 
in favor of an infallible body, is inadmissible, since he is incapa- 
ble of apprehending the premises from which your conclusion is 
drawn. You have taken both horns of this dilemma, pushing 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 65 

Protestants with one, and upholding Popery with the other, and 
both are fatal to you. Now, as it is rather difficult to be on both 
sides of the same question at the same time, you must adhere 
to one or the other. If you adhere to your first position, that all 
human learning is necessary to settle the credibility of the Scrip- 
tures, then you must seek other proofs of an infallible body than 
those which you think you have gathered from the Apostles. You 
must first establish the infallibility of the body that claims to 
teach us, and then receive the Sacred Oracles at their hand. A 
circulating syllogism proves nothing, and if he who establishes 
the credibility of the Scriptures by an infallible body, and then es- 
tablishes the infallibility of the body from the credibility of the 
Scriptures, does not reason in a circle, I am at a loss to apprehend 
the nature of that sophism. If you adhere to your other position, 
that the accuracy of the Evangelists can be easily substantiated, 
then your objections to private judgment are fairly given up, and 
you surrender the point, that a man can decide for himself with ab- 
solute certainty, concerning the inspiration of the Bible. Take 
which horn you please, your cause is ruined : and as you have suc- 
cessively chosen both, you have made yourself as ridiculous as 
your reasoning is contemptible. 

The process by which you endeavor to elicit an infallible 
body of teachers from the Scriptures, is in perfect keeping with 
the rest of your argument. You do not pretend that they con- 
tain any express testimony to the fact ; neither do you deduce 
from them any marks by which your unerring guides of faith can 
be discriminated from those who introduce errors and attempt to 
change the religion of Christ. — How then does it appear that 
such infallible instructors were appointed? Why, there is no 
other way in which God could accomplish His purpose of trans- 
mitting Christianity pure and uncorrupted to the remotest gen- 
erations of men. This is the sum and substance of the argu- 
ment, for the sake of which you have made yourself so consum- 
mately ridiculous, by contradicting your previous statements in 
regard to the credibility of the Scriptures ! " Some adequate 
provision must be made against the error and change-seeking ten- 
dency of man/' and as Christianity is appointed to be learned from 
persons delegated to teach in the name and by the authority of 

4* 



66 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Christ, " that provision must evidently and necessarily be directed 
to preserve that body of teachers, by the power of God, from 
error, and to make them, in fact, teach all things whatsoever He 
had taught them." 

That an infallible body of teachers presents the only effectual 
means of perpetuating the religion of Christ, unadulterated with 
error, is so exceedingly unlikely, that it would require nothing 
less than a constant miracle to preserve a system transmitted in 
this way from corruptions, additions, and radical changes. Unless 
each individual pastor were himself infallible, fatal errors might 
be widely disseminated before the body could be collected to- 
gether to separate the chaff from the wheat, and to distinguish 
the precious from the vile. Three centuries have hardly passed 
away since the last General Council of the Roman Church was first 
convened. In that lapse of time, how many unauthorized opin- 
ions may have gained currency among the pastors of your Church, 
and have perverted your flocks from the true doctrines of Rome? 
The truth is, without a perpetual superintendence over the mind 
and heart of every solitary teacher, amounting to a miraculous 
protection from error, the plan of transmitting a system of reli- 
gion by oral tradition, is the most unsafe, uncertain, and liable 
to abuse, of any that could be adopted. The commonest story 
cannot pass through a single community withont gathering addi- 
tion as it goes. How then shall a complicated system of religion 
be handed down from generation to generation — passed on from lip 
to lip, and from age to age, and lose nothing of its original integ- 
rity, and gain nothing from the invention of man? Sir, your 
" common sense," and " the common sense of an Indian or 
negro," might lead you "to expect that this is the course which 
the Saviour would adopt," but nothing but His own word can 
render it credible to me. No, sir, God has taken a different 
method to guard against the " error and change-seeking tenden- 
cies of men." He has committed His holy religion to written 
documents, which are to abide as an infallible standard of faith, 
till the heavens and the earth are no more. There, and there 
alone, are we to seek the truth. By them, and them alone, all 
the spirits are to be tried — all the teachers are to be judged — and 
if Roman pastors, with their wicked pretensions to infallible 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 67 

authority, speak not according- to these records, they are to be 
cast out as lying prophets whom the Lord hath not sent. 

You have totally misconceived the appropriate functions of 
the Christian Ministry. Sir, the preachers of the Gospel were 
never designed to be the lords of the people's faith, but helpers 
of their joy. They are to propose, but it belongs to the Scriptures 
alone to confirm or prove the doctrines of religion. The infalli- 
ble standard is in the Bible, and they who are noble, will, like 
Bereans, test the instructions of their pastors by the true and 
faithful sayings of God. 

You must remember, sir, that the Scriptures, which you 
have admitted to be credible, which were written by men under 
a special promise of Christ to be protected from error and in- 
structed in the truth, profess to be a perfect rule of faith and 
practice. " Their accuracy can be easily substantiated," even 
to the most illiterate understanding. Why, then, should there be 
an infallible stream of tradition, kept up by a constant miracle, 
running parallel with the infallible stream of Scripture, which 
can be, and has been preserved pure by the ordinary providence 
of God ? Is a large variety of means for the accomplishment 
of any effect, when a few are abundantly adequate, characteris- 
tic of the works of God? Is it His ordinary course to multiply 
agents when a single cause is sufficient for His purpose '? Your 
assumption, then, that a body of infallible teachers is necessary 
to preserve the doctrines of Christianity in their original purity, 
is wholly groundless, and your argument, consequently, may be 
given to the winds. The Bible shows us a more excellent way. 

You have indirectly insisted upon the promises of Christ, 
that He would send the Spirit to guide His disciples into all 
truth, and be with them to assist and bless them in preaching 
His Gospel to the ends of the earth. But, sir, these promises do 
not serve your purpose. The first was fulfilled in each of the 
Apostles, and if it is to be applied in a similar form to all their 
successors, it would prove the full inspiration of every lawful 
minister of God. This is more than you are willing to admit. 
You have already told us that no single individual is to be re- 
ceived as an infallible teacher, but that the authority to make an 
unerring decision belongs exclusively " to a body of individuals 



68 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

in their collective capacity." Our Saviour said nothing of such 
a body ; His promise in reference to the Apostles was evidently 
personal, and applied to them in the official relations which each 
sustained as a steward of the mysteries of God. How, then, 
was the promise accomplished to succeeding ages? By leading 
the Apostles, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, to record 
the infallible instructions of Christ, which should be a perpetual 
rule of faith, containing all things important for man to know 
or for man to do. * These venerable men live in their books : 

* See this subject ably and satisfactorily discussed in Warburton's Doctrine 
of Grace, pt. i., and Bishop Heber's Bampton Lectures. The reader will ex- 
cuse the following extract from the 7th of Heber's Lectures : 

" It appears, then, that the advent of the Paraclete, and his abode among 
men, would be, during any period of Christian History, sufficiently evinced by 
the existence of one or more inspired individuals, whose authority should gov- 
ern, whose lights should guide, whose promises should console their less distin- 
guished brethren ; and by whom, and in whom, as the agents and organs of His 
will, the Holy Ghost should be recognized as Sovereign of the Church Univer- 
sal. But if this be conceded, it will signify but very little, or (to speak more 
boldly, perhaps, but not less accurately) it will be a circumstance altogether in- 
significant, whether the instruction afforded be oral or epistolary ; whether the 
government be carried on by the authority of a present lawgiver, or through 
the medium of rescripts bearing his seal, and, no less than his personal man- 
dates, compulsory on the obedience of the faithful. In every government, 
whether human or divine, the amanuensis of a sovereign is an agent of his 
will, no less ordinary and effectual than his herald : and St. Paul both might 
and did lay claim to an equal deference when, in the name and on the behalf of 
that Spirit by whom he was actuated, he censured by his letters the incestuous 
Corinthian, as if he had, when present and by word of mouth, pronounced the 
ecclesiastical sentence. It follows that the Holy Ghost as accurately fulfilled 
the engagement of Christ, as the Patron and Governor of Christians, by the 
writings of the inspired person when absent, as by his actual presence and 
preaching. And if St. Paul, having once by divine authority, set in order the 
Asiatic and Grecian Churches, had departed for Spain, or Britain, or some other 
country, at so great a distance as to render all subsequent communication im- 
possible ; yet still, so long as the instructions left behind sufficed for the wants 
and interests of the community, that community would not have ceased to be 
guided and governed by the Holy Ghost through the writings of his chosen ser- 
vant. But that authority which we allow to the writings of an absent Apostle, 
we cannot, without offending against every analogy of reason and custom, deny 
to those which a deceased Apostle has left behind him. For the authority of 
such writings, I need hardly observe, is of an official, not of a personal nature, 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 69 

" for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a pro- 
geny of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny 
they are ; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy 
and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. A good 
book is the precious lifeblood of a master-spirit, embalmed and 
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." It is in the re- 
cords which they left that we now find the spirit of inspiration ; 
there is his abode, there the place of his supreme illumination, 
and in these books, consequently, Christianity must be sought in 
its purity and vigor. 

The other promise pledges the assistance of Christ to those 
who preach the truth. It is a standing encouragement to all 
ministers that, in faithfully dispensing the word of God according 
to the*law and the testimony, their labor should not be in vain 
in the Lord. Our Saviour had previously given a command, to 
go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. 
The prospect of success in the fulfilment of this solemn injunc- 
tion, from the condition of society, the prejudices of the Jews, 
the philosophy of the Greeks, and the superstition of the Ro- 

It does not consist in their having emanated from Peter or James or John, ab- 
stractly considered, (in which case, the authority of any one of them might, 
undoubtedly, terminate with his life,) but their authority is founded in that faith 
which receives these persons as accredited agents of the Almighty. We rever- 
ence their communications as the latest edicts of the Paraclete ; and we believe 
all further communications to have ceased for a time ; not because those emi- 
nent servants of God have long since gone to their reward, for it were as easy 
for the Holy Spirit to raise up other prophets in their room as it was originally 
to qualify them for that high office — not because we apprehend that the good 
Spirit is become indifferent to the welfare of the Church, for this would be in 
utter contradiction to the gracious assurance of our Saviour ; but because suffi- 
cient light has been already afforded for the government of our hopes and tem- 
pers ; and because no subsequent question has occurred for which the Scriptures 
already given had not already and sufficiently provided. * * * * . 

" We conclude, then, as Warburton has long since concluded, (though he 
arrived at the same truth by a process somewhat different, and incumbered its 
definition by circumstances which I have shown to be irrelevant,) we conclude 
that it is by the revelation of the Christian covenant and by the preservation of 
the knowledge thus communicated to the ancient Church, in the Scriptures of 
the New Testament, that the Holy Ghost has manifested and fc continues,[as the 
vicar and successor of Christ, to manifest his protecting care of Christianity ." 



70 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

mans, was far from encouraging. To support their faith and 
quicken their hopes, their ascending Saviour pledged His al- 
mighty power to make His truth effectual, in bringing down lofty 
imaginations, and subduing the hearts of men in captivity to His 
cross. The promise in that passage is not that they should speak 
the truth, and nothing but the truth, but that in speaking the 
truth, in preaching whatever He had commanded, He would be 
with them always, even to the end of the world ; and this prom- 
ise has never failed. 

Your letter contains a few incidental statements, introduced 
in the way of cumulative testimony, to confirm the pretensions 
of your infallible body. You tell us first, that it can trace its 
predecessors in an unbroken line up to the age of the Apostles 
themselves. So far is this from being the truth, that not a single 
priest in your Church can have any absolute certainty that he 
is a priest at all, unless he be invested with the prerogative of 
God to search the hearts and try the reins of the children of 
men. Intention, on your principles, is an essential element of 
a valid ordination ! How can a priest be assured that his Bishop 
intended to ordain him, or how can the Bishop be assured that 
he himself was lawfully consecrated? The whole matter is 
involved in confusion, and you cannot know whether you are 
pastors at all, or not. 

Again, you inform us of the prodigious numbers that have 
been converted by the labors of your infallible teachers. Sir, 
the world loveth its own, and it is characteristic of the broad 
road that leads to death, that thousands are journeying its 
downward course. Mahomet laid the foundations of an em- 
pire, which, in the course of eighty years, extended farther than 
the Roman arms, for eight hundred years, had been able to 
spread the jurisdiction of the Caesars. In this comparatively 
short space of time, there were brought under the sway of the 
Crescent the Grecian, Persian, and Mogul States, with many 
others of inferior importance; and yet Mahometanism, not- 
withstanding its unparalleled success, was a gross system of 
imposture and fraud. The purity of a system is not to be de- 
termined by the multitudes that embrace it. How significant is 
the question of our Saviour: When the Son of man cometh 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 71 

shall he find faith on the earth 1 Fear not, little flock, it is your 
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 

Why have you omitted all mention of the meekness and 
patience that have always been characteristic of the Church of 
God ? Were you conscious, sir, that you had no claims to that 
discriminating badge of the faithful ? Did the past rise up 
before you in horrible distinctness, and warn you to forbear ? 
Rome, Papal Rome, which professes to be the humble, meek, 
patient, suffering Church of God, is literally steeped in human 
gore. Your pastors have inflicted more sufferings upon men, 
have shed more human blood, have invented a greater variety of 
tortures, have more deeply revelled in human misery and feasted 
on human groans, than all the tyrants, bigots, and despots of all 
the systems of superstition and oppression that have ever ap- 
peared in the world, from the fall of man to the present day. 
To Papal Rome the foul pre-eminence of cruelty must unques- 
tionably be awarded. The holy ministers of the Inquisition, 
under the sacred name of religion, have tested to its utmost 
limits the capacity of human endurance ; every bone, muscle, 
sinew, and nerve have been effectually sounded, and the precise 
point ascertained at wiiich agony is no longer tolerable, and the 
convulsed and quivering spirit must quit its tenement of clay. 
The degree of refinement and perfection to which the art of 
torment has been carried in these infernal prisons is enough 
to make humanity shudder, and religion sicken, and nothing but 
the most invincible blindness could ever confound these habita- 
tions of cruelty, these dark corners of the earth, with the means 
of grace and the elements of salvation. How preposterous, 
while breathing out slaughter and cruelty, exhibiting more the 
spirit of cannibals than the temper of Christians, to claim to be 
the Holy Catholic Church — the chosen depository of truth — the 
special temple of the Holy Ghost ! 

Having, as you suppose, sufficiently proved that an infallible 
body exists, you next proceed to show us that it must be com- 
posed of the pastors and teachers of your own communion. 
This part of your argument need not detain me long, as I have 
clearly refuted your proofs of the existence of such a body. Still 
if it did exist, the mere claim of Rome would not establish 



72 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

her pretensions to be received as an unerring tribunal of faith. 
Theudas and Judas each claimed to be the promised Messiah of 
the Jews. Mahomet claimed to be a true prophet of God, and 
the Devil himself sometimes claims to be an angel of light. If 
an arrogant claim is sufficient to establish a right, and such a 
right is founded in absolute certainty, how long would the dis- 
tinctions of truth and falsehood, of virtue and vice, be preserved 
among men ? 

I have now, sir, sufficiently reviewed your pretended proofs 
of the infallibility of Rome as a witness for the truth, and have 
shown them to be alike ridiculous and vain. You have given 
us the true value of your argument, in saying that it would con- 
vince an infant mind. It may be adapted to children and idiots, 
but it is ill suited to bearded men. Perhaps one reason why 
you are so anxious to establish schools for Protestant children 
and erect asylums for Protestant orphans, while you suffer starv- 
ing millions of your own flock to live by begging, and die in 
ignorance, is to be found in the secret conviction which you 
feel that your only hope of success is among those who cannot 
discriminate between legitimate reasoning and puerile sophisms. 
You are conscious, sir, of your total incompetency to encounter 
men, and therefore devote your ghostly attention to silly women 
and prattling babes. 



LETTER V. 

Historical difficulties in the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 

The infallibility of the Papal Church is a doctrine so mo- 
mentous in its consequences, as to deserve a more extended view 
than a simple refutation of the arguments by which you have 
endeavored to support it. This, sir, is the tiqmtov ipsvdog of your 
system — the foundation of those enormous corruptions in doc- 
trine, and abuses in discipline, by which you have enslaved the 
consciences of men, and transmuted the pure and glorious gos- 
pel of Christ into a dark and malignant superstition, which, 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 73 

through fear of your malediction, keeps its deluded victims in 
bondage in this world, and, from the certain malediction of God, 
dooms them to perdition in the world to come. Your preten- 
sions to the unerring guidance of the Holy Ghost render change 
impossible, and reformation hopeless. Whatever you have been 
in the past ages of your history you are to-day ; and the errors 
which, in other times, ignorance engendered from a warm imagi- 
nation, or which avarice and ambition have found it convenient 
to present to the world as the offspring of truth, must still be de- 
fended, and still carried out into all their legitimate results. 
The impositions which you practised in an age of darkness, 
must now be justified in an age of light. The absurdities of the 
past, which sprang from the blind superstition of monks and 
priests, or from the lordly pretensions of Popes and Prelates, 
must now be fathered upon the Spirit of God ; and that aid, 
which neither reason nor the Scriptures impart to your dogmas, 
must be supported by an arrogant claim to the control and super- 
vision of the Holy Ghost. This is your last resort; and when 
this corner-stone is removed, your whole system totters to its fall. 
It is the impression of Divine authority that conceals from your 
parasites the hideous proportions of the papal fabric ; it is this 
which throws a charm of solemnity around it, and renders that 
awful and venerable, which, seen in its true light, would, at once, 
be pronounced the temple of Antichrist. The question, there- 
fore, of infallibility, is to you a question of life and death. The 
very being of the papacy, depends upon maintaining the spell 
by which you have so long deluded the nations of the earth. 
Let this wand of your enchantment be broken, and the chambers 
of your imagery disclosed, and darker abominations will be re- 
vealed than those which the prophet beheld in the temple of the 
Lord at Jerusalem. 

In pretending to the distinguished prerogative of infallibility, 
there is a prodigious and astonishing contrast between the weak- 
ness of your proofs and the extravagance of your claims. It seems 
that you act upon the principle by which Tertullian once sup- 
ported a palpable absurdity, and resolve to believe it, because, un- 
der the circumstances of the case, it is absolutely impossible that 
it can be true. 



74< ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOH THE 

The ordinary arguments which your writers are accustomed 
to adduce, proceed upon a principle radically false. They reason 
from expediency to fact, and because an infallible tribunal is 
supposed to be a proper appointment for suppressing heresy and 
terminating controversy in matters of faith, it is rashly inferred 
that such a tribunal has been actually established. The incon- 
sistency of such an arrangement with that peculiar probation 
which the moral government of God involves: in which our 
characters are tested, our principles developed, and the real in- 
clinations of the heart made manifest; a probation which ne- 
cessarily supposes temptations, dangers and trials, both in appre- 
hending the truth and in discharging the duties of life, seems to 
form no part of their estimate. With such a condition of moral 
discipline the plan which the providence of God has appointed, 
for arriving at certainty upon the truths of the Gospel, is per- 
fectly consistent. The truth is committed to written documents 
— the reception of those documents depends in a great degree 
upon the state of the heart, which, as the medium through which 
it must pass, imparts its own tinge to the evidence submitted. 
They that are willing to comply with the commandments, are in 
that mental condition which disposes them to receive and justly 
to appreciate the truth of God ; and to all such the Spirit of grace, 
which the Saviour bequeathed as a legacy to the Church, will 
impart an infallible assurance to establish their minds. A plan 
like this is in harmonious accordance with every other feature 
of the moral government of God. The understanding is as really 
tested as the heart — or rather the dispositions of the heart — the 
moral character of the man is really exhibited by his dealings 
with the truth. There is in the first instance no overwhelming 
evidence whicp quells opposition, silences prejudice, and conceals 
the native enmity of man against spiritual light. There is no 
resistless demonstration which compels assent, and which, by 
rendering us timid in indulging inclination, may make us less vis- 
ibly vicious, but not less really depraved, nor more truly virtuous. 
There is no portentous sign from heaven which startles the skep- 
tic in his parleys with error, and forces him*to receive what his 
nature leads him to detest. The true evidence of the Gospel is 
a growing evidence — sufficient always to create obligation and 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 75 

to produce assurance, but effectual only as the heart expands in 
fellowship with God and becomes assimilated to the spirits of the 
just. It is precisely the evidence which is suited to our moral 
condition. And any views of expediency which would prompt 
us to expect a different kind of evidence, an evidence which 
should stifle or repress those peculiar traits of character by which 
error is engendered, would be inconsistent with the state in 
which we are placed. Hence we are told that it must needs be 
that heresies should come, that they which are approved may be 
made manifest. Our real condition requires the possibility of 
error ; and God consequently has made no arrangements for ab- 
solutely terminating controversies and settling questions of faith 
without regard to the moral sympathies of men. Upon the sup- 
position, however, that a kind of evidence was intended to be 
provided by which the truth might be infallibly apprehended 
while the heart continued in rebellion against God ; by which 
the possibility of cavil might be removed and no plausible pre- 
text be afforded to the sophist ; by which, in fact, the light ac- 
tually vouchsafed should not only be sufficient, but wholly irre- 
sistible — if the object had been to extirpate error and to prevent 
controversy, it would have been a less circuitous method to 
have made each man personally infallible, and thus have secured 
the reception of the truth. The argument from expediency is 
certainly as strong in favor of individual infallibility as in favor 
of the infallibility of a special body — it is even stronger, for the 
end desired to be gained could be much more speedily and 
effectually accomplished. Errors would not only be checked but 
prevented, controversy would be torn up by the roots, and the 
whole world would be made to harmonize in symbols of faith ! # 



* " But it is more useful and fit ," you say, " for the deciding of controver- 
sies, to have, besides an infallible rule to go by, a living, infallible judge to de- 
termine them ; and from hence you conclude that certainly there is such a judge. 
But why, then, may not another say, that it is yet more useful, for many excel- 
lent purposes, that all the patriarchs should be infallible, than that the pope only 
should ] Another, that it would be yet more useful that all the archbishops of 
every province should be so, than that the patriarchs only should be so. Anoth- 
er, that it would be yet more useful, if all the bishops of every diocese were so. 
Another, that it would be yet more available that all the parsons of every 



76 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

The method of reasoning, consequently, from expediency to 
fact is fallacious and unsafe : and if the magnificent pretensions 
of your sect rest upon no firmer basis than deceitful notions of 
utility and convenience, they are indeed built upon the sand. 
Instead of a solid and a noble fabric of imposing strength and 
commanding grandeur, you present us with a structure as weak 
and contemptible as the toy-houses of children constructed of 
cards. 

There are no less than three different opinions entertained 
in your church, as to the organ through which its infallibility is 
exercised or manifested. This single circumstance is enough to 
involve the whole claim in contempt. If it be not infallibly cer- 
tain where the infallible tribunal is, in case of emergency, to be 
found, the old logical maxim applies with undiminished force, 
de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio. To 
settle controversies, it is not enough that a judge exists, his ex- 
istence must be known, and his court accessible. Uncertainty 
as to the seat of an infallible authority, is just as fatal to the 
legitimate exercise of its functions, as uncertainty in regard to 
the being of the authority in the abstract. To resolve our doubts 
and remove our difficulties, some of your Doctors refer us to the 
Pope as the vicar of Christ, the Head of the Church, the Teacher 
of the faithful,. and plead the decisions of councils in behalf of 
his pretensions. As the centre of unity to the Church, and the 
fountain or source of ecclesiastical power, they represent him as 
possessed of an authority as absolute as that with which the head 

parish should be so. Another, that it would be yet more excellent" if all the 
fathers of families were so. And, lastly, another, that it were much more to be 
desired that every man and every woman were so : just as much as the pre- 
vention of controversies is better than the decision of them, and the prevention 
of heresies better than the condemnation of them ; and upon this ground, con- 
clude by your own very consequence, that not only a general council, not only 
the pope, but all the patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, pastors, fathers, nay, all 
men in the world, are infallible. If you say now, as I am sure you will, that 
this conclusion is most gross and absurd, against sense and experience, then 
must also the ground be false from which it evidently and undeniably follows, 
viz., that the course of dealing with men seems always more fit to Divine Prov- 
idence, which seems more fit to human reason." — Chillingworth, vol. i. p. 249. 
Oxford Edition of 1838. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 77 

controls the members of the body. Hence your bishops are no- 
thing but his vicars ; and, in token of their bondage, they are not 
content with the usual oaths of allegiance by which subjects are 
held in obedience to their sovereign, but they enter into a solemn 
obligation to appear personally before him every three years, to 
give an account of their stewardship, or else excuse themselves 
by an adequate deputy. " As in a disciplined army," says Dr. 
Milner, a modern writer of your sect, in a charge which, though 
intrinsically worthless, excited too much controversy to be 
speedily forgotten — " as in a disciplined army, the soldiers obey 
their officers, and these, other officers of superior rank, who 
themselves are subject to a commander-in-chief; so in the Cath- 
olic Church, extending, as it does, from the rising to the setting 
sun — the faithful of all nations are guided by their pastors, who, 
in their turns, are submissive to the prelates, whilst the whole 
body is subordinate to one supreme pastor, whose seat is the 
rallying-point and centre of them all." In this exquisite system 
of slavery, the Pope is evidently the sovereign authority — the 
whole body is subordinate to him, and as the centre and rallying 
point of the whole, whatever infallibility the church possesses 
must be found in the person of her supreme pastor. Under any 
other theory of infallibility, this, it may be well to remark, is and 
must be the practical working of your system. Your leading 
maxim is obedience — there must be no investigation of the right 
to command — no regard to the propriety of the precepts — the 
whole duty of the people is summed up in a single word, obey. 
This system of absolute submission runs up unchecked until it 
terminates in the Sovereign Pontiff at Rome, whose edicts and 
decrees, by necessary consequence, none can question, and who 
is, therefore, the absolute lord of papal faith. This seems to be 
the inevitable result of that slavish doctrine of passive obedience 
which your pastors inculcate, and without which your church 
would expire in a day. Hence whether you lodge infallibility 
with councils — with the body of the pastors at large, or give the 
pope an ultimate veto upon the decisions of ecumenical synods, 
to this complexion, under the theory of implicit obedience, it 
must unavoidably come at last, and the practical impression upon 
the people will be precisely that, which we are told by intel- 



78 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

ligent travellers, prevails in Italy — " the pope is greater than 
God."* 

It is evident that the infallibility of the pope cannot be sepa- 
rated from his claim to supremacy. To prove that he is not 
supreme, is, in other words, to prove that he is not infallible. 
Now to those who maintain that the infallible authority of the 
church is to be sought in the person of his Holiness, this his- 
torical difficulty arises : Where ? where was that infalli- 
bility before a Supreme Pastor existed ? It is a fact sustained 
by the amplest testimony that as late, at least, as the seventh 
century, the Bishops of the Church, not excepting the Bishops of 
Rome, whatever accidental differences prevailed among them, 
were regarded at least as officially equal. According to Jerome, 
every Bishop, whether of Rome, Eugubium, Constantinople, 
Rhegium, Alexandria, or Tanis, possessed the same merit and 
the same Priesthood. t " There is but one bishopric in the 
Church," says Cyprian — " and every bishop has an undivided 
portion in it,"| that is, it is one office, and the power of all who 
are invested with it is precisely the same. In his letter to Pope 
Stephen, this doctrine is still more distinctly announced, but it 
is fully brought out in the speech which he delivered at the 
opening of the great Council of Carthage. " For no one of us," 
says he, " makes himself bishop of bishops, and compels his 
colleagues, by tyrannical power, to a necessity of complying; 
forasmuch as every bishop, according to the liberty and' power 
that is granted him, is free to act as he sees fit; and can no more 
be judged by others, than he can judge them. But let us all 
expect the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who only hath 
power both to invest us with the government of his Church, and 
to pass sentence upon our actions." 

* " II papa e piu che Dio per noi altri." — For a remarkable account of the 
extravagant adulation which has been heaped upon the Popes, see Erasmus on 
1 Tim. i. 6. 

t Epist. 85, ad Evang. — Ubicunque fuerit Episcopus, sive Romae, sive 
Eugubii, sive Constantinopoli, sive Rhegii, sive Alexandriae, sive Tanis, ejus- 
dem meriti, ejusdem est et Sacerdotii. 

X De Unitat. Eccles. ' Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum 
par s tenetur. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 79 

But an authority which ought to be decisive on this question 
is to be found in the testimony of Gregory the Great, who was 
filled with horror at the arrogant pretensions of the Patriarch of 
Constantinople, to be treated as a universal Bishop, and in the 
strongest terms reprobated the idea that any such title could be 
lawfully applied to any person whatever.* 

During these six centuries in which the Church was without 
a visible head, when there was neither centre of unity nor rally- 
ing-point to the whole ; when, in the modern sense, there was 
no such thing as a pope, where was the infallibility of the body ? 
Most evidently it could not have been in the Bishop of Rome — 
he was not then what he is now — and those who contend that he 
constitutes now the infallible tribunal of the Church, are reduced 
to the awkward necessity of maintaining, either that there was 
then no infallible tribunal at all, or that it has since been trans- 
ferred from its ancient seat to the person of the pope. If the 
latter alternative should be assumed, upon what grounds and by 
what authority was the transfer made — when, where, and how? 
These are questions which require to be answered with absolute 
certainty before we can have any absolute certainty that the 
Bishop of Rome is not as liable to error now as he was in the 
days of Firmilian.f 

The theory which lodges infallibility with general councils 
is pressed with historical difficulties just as strong as those which 
lie against the infallibility of the Pope. If you except the Synod 
at Jerusalem, in the age of the Apostles, which can hardly be 
called ecumenical or general, there was no such thing as a gen- 
eral council of the Church, until the first quarter of the fourth 
century. For two hundred years, consequently, after the last of 
the Apostles had fallen asleep, the Church had neglected to 
speak, though numerous and dangerous heresies had been indus- 



* Epist. lib. vi. epist. 30. — Ego fidenter dico, quod quisquis se Universalem 
Sacerdotem vocat velvocari desiderat, in elatione sua, Antichristum praecurrit. 
I affirm with confidence that whosoever calls himself, or wishes to be called, 
universal Bishop, in this lifting up of himself is the forerunner of Antichrist. 

t See his Epistle to Pope Stephen charging him both with error and 
schism . 



80 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

triously circulated, through the only organ by which she could 
pronounce an infallible decision. During all that time she was 
shorn of her strength. Is it probable, is it credible, that while 
the most fatal errors were disseminated in regard to the person 
of Christ, and the wildest vagaries were indulged by the Mon- 
tanists and Gnostics, there existed an authority to which the 
whole Church deferred as supreme, and which by a single word 
was competent to crush these growing delusions? Why did the 
Fathers ply so strenuously the strong arguments of Scriptural 
truth, the w r ords and teachings of prophets and apostles, if there 
was indeed a stronger argument to which they might resort, and 
from whose decision there was no appeal ? A judge that ne- 
glects to act in critical emergencies, just at the time when his 
authority is needed, is little to be preferred to no judge at all. 

There is still another historical fact which it is difficult to 
reconcile with synodical supremacy. The early councils attri- 
buted the authority of the canons which they settled to the sanc- 
tion of the Emperor. They pretended to no infallible jurisdic- 
tion ; their decrees were not set forth as the word of God ; 
the veto of the Emperor destroyed them ; his favor made them 
obligatory, as far as his power extended.* Were the Apostles 
thus helpless without the imperial sanction ? Did their instruc- 
tions acquire the force of Divine laws from the favor of Nero, or 
the patronage of the Caesars? If the councils were as infallible 
as the Apostles, why did they not proclaim their edicts in the 
name of God, and, whether the Emperors approved or condemned, 
maintain" their absolute pow T er to bind the conscience by the au- 
thority of Christ ? These councils were evidently expedients of 
peace, adopted by the government as well as by the church, for 
the purpose of securing uniformity of faith, and preventing reli- 
gious disturbances in the empire. They were not regarded as 
the unerring representatives of Christ — the deference paid to the 
writings of the Apostles was never paid to them, they were not 
acknowledged as the organ of the Spirit. Others again maintain 
that no council is infallible whose convocation and decisions 
have not alike received the sanction of the Pope. These per- 

* See Barrow, Suprem. Pope, and passages referred to, Suppos. 6. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 81 

sons are truly in a sad dilemma; for all the early councils were 
confessedly convened by the mandate of the Emperor, and many 
were acknowledged as authoritative in their own day, whose 
canons were opposed by the Bishop of Rome. According to 
this principle, there was no such thing as infallibility in the 
church, until the Pope acquired the dominion of an earthly 
Prince, and could assemble the subjects of the realm from dif- 
ferent quarters of the globe by his own sovereign authority.* 

If, as a last desperate resort against all these historical objec- 
tions, it should be asserted that the unanimous consent of all the 
pastors of the church, was a sufficient proof of the infallible truth 
of any system of doctrines — the question might still be asked, 
whether such unanimity has ever prevailed, and how, in refer- 
ence to any given point, it can be ascertained. The idea of 
reaching the truth by a system of eclecticism, collecting only the 
doctrines which have never been disputed, is utterly unworthy 
of a rational understanding. It proceeds upon the wholly gratu- 
itous assumption, that nothing important has ever been denied, 
or nothing evidently true has ever been questioned. The his- 
tory of religion, however, affords the most abundant proof that 
the vanity of man, even apart from considerations of interest, 
may be an adequate motive for attacking the most sacred opin- 
ions and venerable institutions, while others less important are 
protected from insult by their acknowledged insignificance. 
Such is the weakness of humanity that fame is often more pre- 
cious than truth, and he who cannot hope to rise to distinction 
by contributing to the general fund of human knowledge, is 
sometimes tempted to seek notoriety from the profane attempt to 
demolish the temple erected by the labor of years. The very 
grandeur of the edifice provokes the efforts of infatuated vanity. 
To suppose, consequently, that those doctrines of religion are 
alone infallibly true which have met with universal approbation, 
is to overlook the weakness and folly of man, and to attribute to 
his conduct in regard to religion, a wisdom and propriety which 
the history of the past by no means sustains. It is much more 
natural to suppose that the most important truths, should be the 

* See Barrow, Snprem. Pope, and passages referred to, Suppos. 6 

5 



83 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

subjects of the fiercest contentions — that ambitious churchmen 
who had been defeated in their views of personal aggrandize- 
ment, should endeavor to wreak their vengeance, and gratify their 
vanity, by aiming their blows at the very vitals of Christianity. 
Hence we find, in fact, that a large share of the distractions of 
Christendom, the most pestiferous and deadly errors, have owed 
their origin to the spleen and mortification of their authors. 
How much, too, ambition, the master-sin by which angels fell, 
has corrupted the church, and perverted the right ways of the 
Lord, the whole history of the Papacy abundantly attests. Arius 
failed in obtaining a bishopric, and vented his malignity in at- 
tacking the very foundation of the faith. The extent to which 
prejudice, mere prejudice, prevailed in the controversies of the 
Iconoclasts and Monothelites, is an amusing commentary on the 
harmony of priests in fundamental doctrines; and there is an 
instance on record of a famous interpreter, who confessedly dis- 
torted a passage of Scripture from its just and obvious meaning, 
because the leader of another sect had endorsed it in his com- 
mentaries. A man, consequently, who should act upon the fa- 
mous maxim, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, in the 
formation of his creed, and resolve to admit nothing as infallible 
truth which had not the mark of universal consent, might con- 
dense his articles, in a very narrow compass. Not a single dis- 
tinctive feature of revelation, upon this absurd hypothesis, would 
be regarded as an essential element of faith. The plenary inspi- 
ration of the Scriptures has been confessedly denied by distin- 
guished divines — whole books of the Bible have been ruthlessly 
discarded from the canon, and even Popes themselves are said 
to have treated the history of Jesus as a gainful fable. It is im- 
portant, therefore, to believe nothing about the inspiration of the 
Scriptures. The doctrine of the Trinity has been bitterly as- 
sailed, the incarnation of the Redeemer openly derided, and the 
work of the Spirit denounced as enthusiasm. While one council 
has determined that Christ was the Eternal Son of the Father, 
another, with equal pretensions to infallibility, has decided against 
his divinity. Nothing, therefore, is infallibly certain about the 
person of Christ, and a man may be a very good Catholic, ac- 
cording to the maxim in question, without any opinion of the 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 83 

Saviour at all. Nay, the very being of God may be lawfully 
discarded from a creed collected in this way, since the succes- 
sors of the Fisherman, unless they are greatly belied, have not 
occasionally scrupled to indulge in skeptical doubts upon this 
prime article of religion. This unanimous consent of the pas- 
tors of the church, therefore, is a mere phantom of the brain 
always mocking our efforts to compass it, and retreating be- 
fore us like the verge of the horizon. It is " vox et preeterea 
nihil.^ 

But suppose such an unanimous consent existed in fact in 
reference to all the doctrines of Christianity. Suppose that no 
pastors of the Church had ever been heretical, how is an Indian 
or negro to become acquainted with a testimony that embraces 
all the priests that have ever said or sung the services of the 
Church, from the age of the Apostles to the period of his own ex- 
istence? To achieve such a task would require a critical appa- 
ratus hardly less formidable than that which you pronounce to be 
essential to the settlement of the canon. 

I have now reviewed the leading theories in regard to the seat 
of the infallibility of your church which have been maintained 
among you, and have shown them to be encompassed with histo- 
rical difficulties fatal to their truth. There is one general ob- 
jection of the same kind which covers them all, and which, upon 
the approved principle of logic, that two contradictories cannot 
possibly both be true, would seem to settle the matter. It is in- 
dubitably certain that Popes have contradicted Popes, Councils 
have contradicted Councils, and Pastors have contradicted Pas- 
tors, and all have contradicted the Scriptures. Notwithstanding 
your vain boasts of the unchanging uniformity of your system, 
and the perfect consistency and harmony of the doctrines of faith 
which your church in every age has inculcated, it is still histori- 
cally true, that you have exhibited at different periods such 
variety of tenets, as to render you wonderfully like the adminis- 
tration of Lord Chatham, as inimitably described by Burke. 
Your syntagma confessionum would present a scene " so 
checkered and speckled ; a piece of joinery, so crossly indented 
and whimsically dovetailed ; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such 
a piece ©f diversified mosaic, such a tesselated pavement with- 



84 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

out cement — here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white— 
that it might be indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe 
to touch, and unsure to stand on." 

In the short compass of twenty-three years, to give a specimen 
of your wonderful consistency, we have idolatry both abolished 
and established by the councils of a church, which, according to 
Bossuet, never varies, — the Council of Constantinople unani- 
mously decreeing the removal of images, and the abolition of 
image-worship, and the Council of Nice re-establishing both, and 
pronouncing an anathema on all who had concurred in the pre- 
vious decision. The second Council of Ephesus approved and 
sanctioned the impiety of Eutyches, and the Council of Chalce- 
don condemned it. The fourth Council of Lateran asserted the 
doctrine of a physical change in the eucharistic elements, in ex- 
press contradiction to the teachings of the primitive church, and 
the evident declarations of the Apostles of the Lord. The sec- 
ond Council of Orange gave its sanction to some of the leading 
doctrines of the school of Augustine, and the Council of Trent 
threw the Church into the arms of Pelagius. Thus, at different 
periods, every type of doctrine has prevailed in the bosom of an 
unchangeable Church. She has been distracted with every 
variety of sect, tormented with every kind of controversy, con- 
vulsed with every species of heresy, and at last has settled down 
upon a platform which annihilates the word of God — denounces 
the doctrines of Christ and his Apostles, and bars the gates of 
salvation against men. 

That the Scriptures, and not the Priesthood or any infallible 
body of men, were the only channels through which an infallible 
knowledge of Divine truth was to be acquired, is so clearly the 
doctrine of the primitive Church, which was founded by the 
hands of the Apostles themselves, as to be absolutely fatal to 
any of the forms in which the pretensions of Rome are asserted. 
Among the host of testimonies that might be adduced to establish 
and corroborate this vital point, the following maybe deemed a suf- 
ficient exposition of the views of the Fathers : " Look not,'*' says 
Chrysostom, " for any other teacher — you have the oracles of God, 
no one can teach like them. Any other instructor may, from some 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 85 

erroneous principle, conceal from you many things of the greatest 
importance; and, therefore, I exhort you to procure for your- 
selves Bibles. Have them for your constaut instructors, and in 
all your trials have recourse to them for the remedies you 
need."* 

' It behooveth," says Basil, " that every word and every work 
should be accredited by the testimony of the inspired Scrip- 
ture, "f " It is the duty of hearers/' he observes again, " when 
they have been instructed in the Scriptures, to try and examine 
by them the things spoken by their teachers, to receive whatever 
is consonant to those Scriptures, and to reject whatever is alien, 
for thus they will comply with the injunction of St. Paul, ' To 
prove all things and hold fast that which is good.' "J " With- 
out the word," says Clemens Alexandrinus, " all religious investi- 
gation is vain — the holy prophetic Scriptures are the foundation 
of religious truth — the rule of life — the high road to salvation."§ 

"Whence," says Cyprian, "is this tradition (alluding to a 
pretended tradition of Stephen, Bishop of Rome) 1 Is it delivered 
down to us on the authority of the Lord, and of the Gospel, or from 
the precepts and writings of the Apostles ? For God Himself 
testifies that those things which are written are to be observed. 
(Josh. i. 8.) And the Lord, sending his Apostles, commands 
the nations to be baptized, and to be taught to observe whatso- 
ever He has commanded. If, therefore, it be prescribed in the 
Gospel, or contained in the Epistles, or Acts of the Apostles, by 
all means let this divine and holy tradition be observed. What 
obstinacy, what presumption, to prefer the tradition of men to the 
Divine ordinance, without considering that God is angry and 
provoked whenever human tradition breaks and overlooks the 
Divine commands "|| 

In the Scriptures, then, according to these venerable men, 
and in the Scriptures alone, we possess the charter of our faith, 
pure and uncorrupted as it came from the inspired breasts of the 



* See also Chrysostom's 3d Horn, de Laz. The truth is, a volume might be 
collected from this Father in support of my position. 

t Moral Reg. 26. \ Ibid. 72. 

§ Admon. to the Gentiles, |j Epist. 74, Pompeio. 



86 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Apostles ; and the Holy Spirit, in moving these chosen ambassa- 
dors of Christ to commit his infallible teachings to imperishable 
records, secured that certainty, in the transmission of Christian 
doctrine, which completely obviates the necessity of an infallible 
body of men. Here is, according to the Fathers, what all his- 
tory shows the priesthood of Rome is not — a safe, wise, adequate, 
successful provision against the error and change-making ten- 
dency of man. 

I need not add, that this appears to be the uniform doctrine 
of the Scriptures themselves ; not only do they assert their own 
sufficiency and completeness as a rule of faith, but that they were 
written with the design of handing down, in their integrity and 
purity, the doctrines which the Apostles taught, and the early 
Christians received. The Evangelist Luke, in recording the 
motives which induced him to commit his Gospel to writing, 
states distinctly that his object was that the certainty of those 
things which had been previously communicated by oral teach- 
ing, might be fully apprehended. He proceeds upon the just 
and natural principle, that written documents presented a safer 
channel for the transmission of truth than verbal tradition, 
Peter, when about to put off his mortal tabernacle, makes 
provision for perpetuating the faith, after his decease, by writing 
his Second Epistle. Here was the time and here was the place 
for the pretended founder of the Papacy to assert the prerogatives 
of his see. But not a word does he utter of living teachers — of 
any infallible tribunal composed of men. To his mind written 
memorials were the true security for preserving entire Apostolical 
instructions.* But the grand and fatal objection to the doctrine 

* " The claim of infallibility, or even authority, to prescribe magisterially 
to the opinions and consciences of men, whether in an individual or in assem- 
blies and collections of men, is never to be admitted. Admitted, said 1 1 It is 
not to be heard with patience, unless it be supported by a miracle ; and this 
very text of Scripture (2 Pet. i. 20, 21) is manifestly, of all others, the most 
adverse to the arrogant pretensions of the Roman Pontiff. Had it been the in- 
tention of God, that Christians, after the death of the Apostles, should take the 
sense of Scripture, in all obscure and doubtful passages, from the mouth of an 
infallible interpreter, whose decisions in all points of doctrine, faith and prac- 
tice, should be oracular and final, this was the occasion for the Apostle to have 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 87 

of infallibility, in whatever form it is asserted, is, that it is totally 
destitute of the only kind of proof by which it can be possibly 
supported. To exempt a single individual, or any body of men, 
from the possibility of error, is the exclusive prerogative of God. 
It depends upon Him, therefore, and upon Him alone, to declare 
whether He has granted this distinction to the Popes of Rome, 
the Councils of the Church, or the whole body of its pastors. 
This is a fact which can only be substantiated by a Divine revela- 
tion. This is the sort of evidence which the case requires, and 
without this evidence all such pretensions are vain, delusive, ar- 
rogant, and blasphemous. Abstract reasoning can avail no- 
thing ; there must be a plain declaration from the Lord. Where, 
I ask, and ask triumphantly, is such a declaration to be found ? 
Where has God confirmed by miracles the extravagant claims of 
the Papal community? To look for it in the Scriptures, would 
involve the supposition that the Scriptures are already known to 
be inspired — the proof would become destructive of the end for 
which it was sought. Papists tell us that we cannot be assured 
that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, until we are assured 
that the decisions of the Church are infallible. It would be, then, 
most preposterous in them to remand us to the Scriptures to 
prove their claims, when the only authenticity they ascribe to 

mentioned it, to have told us plainly whither we should resort for the unerring 
explication of those prophecies which, it seems, so well deserve to be studied and 
understood. And from St. Peter, in particular, of all the Apostles, this informa- 
tion was in all reason to be expected, if, as the vain tradition goes, this oracular 
gift was to be lodged with his successors. This, too, was the time when the 
mention of the thing was most likely to occur to the Apostle's thoughts, when 
he was about to be removed from the superintendence of the church, and was 
composing an epistle for the direction of the flock, which he so faithfully had 
fed, after his departure. Yet St. Peter, at this critical season, when his mind 
was filled with an interested care for the welfare of the church after his decease, 
upon an occasion which might naturally lead him to mention all means of in- 
struction that were likely to be provided : in these circumstances, St. Peter gives 
not the most distant intimation of a living oracle to be perpetually maintained 
in the succession of the Roman Bishops. On the contrary, he overthrows their 
aspiring claims by doing that which supersedes the supposed necessity of any 
such institution ; he lays down a plain rule, which, judiciously applied, may ena- 
ble every private Christian to interpret the written oracles of prophecy, in all 
points of general importance, for himself."— Horsely's Sermons, vol. i. Serm. 15. 



88 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the Scriptures is derived from these claims ? Still we may safely 
challenge them to produce from the Bible a single passage which 
directly asserts, or by necessary implication involves, the propo- 
sition — either that the Pope, in his official relations, is an infalli- 
ble expounder of the faith, or that general councils are unerring 
in their decisions, or that the whole body of pastors shall be pre- 
served inviolably from error. On the contrary, we are distinctly 
told that Peter played the hypocrite and was rebuked by Paul, and 
the Ephesian elders are solemnly assured that from even among 
themselves, among the very teachers of the Church, grievous 
wolves should arise, not sparing the flock. And the voice of all 
history — though the Bible says nothing specifically about them, 
as never contemplating such a phenomenon — the voice of all his- 
tory abundantly attests that councils have erred, and so dissipates 
the idle fiction of their infallibility. Is there, then, any other 
revelation, beside the sacred oracles, from which the infallibility 
of the Church may be gathered ? What messenger has ever been 
commissioned to proclaim this truth, and to seal his commission 
by miraculous achievements? Where has the voice of God ever 
commanded us to submit to Rome as His representative and 
vicar ? Where are the Divine credentials of Papal infallibility 1 
Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, Rome must be 
viewed in the light of an impostor, assuming to herself that su- 
preme deference which is due exclusively to the Spirit of God. 
Her pretensions must be regarded as the offspring of fraud, en- 
gendered by ambition and nurtured by interest, which none can 
acknowledge without treason against God, and perdition to them- 
selves. Like the harlot in the Proverbs of Solomon, she stands 
arrayed in gaudy attire to beguile the simple, but her feet take 
hold on death, and her steps lead down to hell, 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 89 

LETTER VI. 

The doctrine of Papal Infallibility the Parent of Skepticism. 

To abandon the exercise of private judgment, and intrust the 
understanding to the guidance of teachers, arrogant enough to 
claim infallibility, without producing the credentials of a Divine 
commission, is to encourage a despotism which none can sanc- 
tion without the express authority of God. Private judgment, 
indeed, can never be wholly set aside ; the pretensions of an 
infallible instructor must be submitted to the understandings of 
men, and finally determined by each man's convictions of truth 
and justice. The ultimate appeal must be to that very reason, 
which, in its independent exercise, is dreaded as the parent of so 
much mischief, the prolific source of so much schism. It is a 
circumstance, however, not sufficiently regarded, that the preten- 
sions of Rome to that degree of inspiration which she arrogantly 
claims, cannot be admitted without striking at the basis of all 
human knowledge ; confounding the distinctions of truth and 
falsehood, and laying the foundations of a skepticism more ma- 
lignant and desolating than the worst calamities which can pos- 
sibly result from the free and unhampered indulgence of private 
opinion. As extremes are so intimately connected, that the least 
touch of the pencil can translate expressions of joy into symp- 
toms of sorrow, so those who seek to remove the occasions of 
difference, to terminate schism, extinguish controversy, and es- 
tablish religion upon the strongest grounds of absolute certainty, 
by resorting to a guide that claims infallibility, without those 
signs and wonders, which indubitably declare that God's Spirit 
is in him, and God's hand upon him, pursue a course which has, 
in reality, a striking and inevitable tendency to conduct the mind 
to a dreary and hopeless Pyrrhonism. There can be no assur- 
ance of truth, without a corresponding confidence in our facul- 
ties ; the light which we enjoy — the convictions of our minds — 
the appearances of things to the human understanding; these are 
to us the measures of truth and falsehood. Whoever is not con- 
tent to receive the information of his senses, the reports of his 

5* 



90 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

consciousness, and the evident conclusions of his own mind, de- 
duced in conformity with those fundamental laws of belief which 
are presupposed in all its operations ; whoever, in other words, 
looks upon his faculties as instruments of falsehood, and distrusts 
the clearest exercise of his powers ; whoever refuses to take upon 
trust what the very constitution of his nature inclines him to be- 
lieve, must rest content with the cheerless prospect of perpetual 
ignorance. 

There can be no knowledge without previous belief, deter- 
mined by the law of our nature, and liable to no suspicious of 
deception, because ultimately resolvable into the veracity of God. 
There are certain primary convictions — certain original princi- 
ples, as Aristotle calls them, through which we know and believe 
every thing else, and which must, therefore, themselves be re- 
ceived with paramount certainty. These instinctive elements of 
natural faith constitute the standard of evidence, the foundation 
of truth — the groundwork of knowledge. Truth is the natural 
and necessary aliment of the soul ; and the faculties of the mind 
in their original constitution, were evidently adjusted with a 
special reference to its pursuit, investigation and enjoyment. As 
the stability of external nature responds harmoniously to our in- 
stinctive belief of the uniformity of its laws, so all the elements of 
faith which enter into the essential constitution of the mind, are 
as admirably and unerringly adapted to their appropriate objects. 
Whatever, consequently, has a tendency to unsettle a man's con- 
fidence in the legitimate and natural exercise of his faculties, or 
to call into question what a distinguished philosopher has de- 
nominated the " fundamental laws of human belief," has an 
equal tendency to introduce a general skepticism, in which the 
distinctions of truth and falsehood are confounded, and the ele- 
ments of life and death promiscuously mingled. To bring the 
different powers of the soul into a state of unnatural collision — 
to set our faculties at war — to involve their functions in suspicion 
— to make the deductions of the understanding contradict the 
original convictions of our nature, is effectually to sap the foun- 
dations of knowledge — to annihilate all certainty — to reduce truth 
and falsehood to a common insignificance, and expose the mind 
to endless perplexity, confusion, and despair. Now this is pre- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 91 

cisely the result which the Church of Rome accomplishes in the 
minds of those who are foolish enough to receive her as an infal- 
lible teacher, and her instructions as infallible truth. She sub- 
verts the original constitution of the mind — contradicts the pri- 
mary and instinctive convictions of every human understanding 
— and pronounces that to be absolutely certain, which God, 
through the essential principles of human belief, declares to be 
absolutely false. She destroys the only foundation of evidence, 
extinguishes its light, surrounds her followers with an artificial 
darkness, and invites them to a repose from which no voice of 
truth can awaken them, no force of argument arouse them. He 
that yields his understanding to the guidance of Rome, must fre- 
quently meet with cases in which the information of his faculties 
is clear and unambiguous, and the constitution of his nature 
prompts him to one view, while the infallible authority to which 
he has submitted requires a contrary faith. Hence, if he be con- 
sistent, he must follow his guide, because, according to the terms 
of the hypothesis, the guide is infallible, and consequently, dis- 
trust the strongest convictions of his own understanding. If, in 
such clear cases, the reason of men deceives them, as deceive 
them it must, if the teacher be indeed incapable of error, how 
shall it ever be known when to trust their faculties at all ? If 
they must regard that light which contradicts the sentiments of 
their pretended instructor, as a temptation of the devil, designed 
in the providence of God to test their fidelity, how shall they 
ever be able to distinguish these false appearances from the real 
illuminations of truth? Is it not evident that they must always 
be children in understanding, shrivelled up in intellectual dwarf- 
ishness by a comfortless Pyrrhonism — ever learning and never 
able to come to the knowledge of the truth 1 

It is a singular fact that, by pretending to infallibility, Rome 
occupies the same position in regard to religion, which Hume 
maintained in relation to philosophy.* She is a skeptical dog- 

* " Our knowledge rests ultimately on certain facts of consciousness, which 
as primitive, and consequently incomprehensible, are given less in the form of 
cognitions than of beliefs. But if consciousness in its last analysis — in other 
words, if our primary experience be a faith, the reality of our knowledge turns 
on the veracity of our generative beliefs. As ultimate, the quality of these be- 



93 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

matist, and by making the same principles conduce to contradic- 
tory results, she virtually pronounces truth to be impossible, and 
" reduces knowledge to zero." The doctrine of transubstanti- 

liefs cannot be inferred ; their truth, however, is in the first instance to be pre- 
sumed. As given and possessed, they must stand good until refuted ; neganti 
incumbit probatio. Intelligence cannot gratuitously annihilate itself; nature is 
not to be assumed to work in vain ; nor the Author of nature to create only to 
deceive. 

^brjfjLT] $' ovttots -rra^nrav cnroXXvTai rfvriva iravrts 
Acioi (prj^i^ovci. Qeov vv ri tan kcli avrrj. 

" But though the truth of our instinctive faiths must originally be admitted, 
their falsehood may subsequently be established : this, however, only through 
themselves — only on the ground of their reciprocal contradiction. Is this con- 
tradiction proved, the edifice of our knowledge is undermined ; for ' no lie is of 
the truth* 

" Consciousness is to the philosopher what the Bible is to the theologian. 
Both are professedly revelations of Divine truth ; both exclusively supply the 
constitutive elements of knowledge, and the regulative standard of its construc- 
tion. Each may be disproved, but disproved only by itself. If one or other 
reveal facts, which, as mutually repugnant, cannot but be false, the authenticity 
of that revelation is invalidated ; and the criticism which signalizes this self- 
refutation, has, in either case, been able to convert assurance into skepticism — 
? to turn the truth of God into a lie/ — 

Et violare fidem primam, et convellere tota 
Fundamenta quibus nixatur vita salusque. — Lucret. 

". As psychology is only a developed consciousness, the positive philosopher has 
thus a primary presumption in favor of the elements out of which his system is 
constructed ; while the skeptic, or negative philosopher, must be content to argue 
back to the falsehood of those elements, from the impossibility which the dog- 
matist may experience, in combining them into the harmony of truth. For 
truth is one ; and the end of philosophy is the intuition of unity. Skepticism is 
not an original or independent method ; it is the correlative and consequent of 
dogmatism ; and so far from being an enemy to truth, it arises only from a false 
philosophy, as its indication and its cure. Alte dubitat qui altius credit. The 
skeptic must not himself establish, but from the dogmatist accept his principles ; 
and his conclusion is only a reduction of philosophy to zero, on the hypothesis 
of the doctrine from which his premises are borrowed. Are the principles 
which a peculiar system involves, convicted of contradiction ; or, are these 
principles proved repugnant to others, which, as facts of consciousness, every 
positive philosophy must admit ; then is established a relative skepticism, or the 
conclusion, that philosophy, so far as realized in this system, is groundless. 
Again, are the principles, which, as facts of consciousness, philosophy in gen- 
eral must comprehend, found exclusive of each other ; there is established an 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 93 

ation, for instance, cannot be admitted without involving in un- 
certainty the information of our senses, and rendering doubtful 
the only evidence upon which all our conceptions of the pheno- 
mena of matter must ultimately depend. Upon the authority of 
Rome we are required to believe, that what our senses pronounce 
to be bread — that what the minutest analysis which chemistry 
can institute is able to resolve into nothing but the constituent 
elements of bread, what every sense pronounces to be material — 
is yet the incarnate Son of God ; soul, body, and Divinity, full 
and entire, perfect and complete. Here Rome and the senses 
are evidently at war ; and here that infallible Church is made to 
despise one of the original principles of belief which God has 
impressed on the constitution of the mind. If, in reference to 
the magical wafer, which the juggling incantations of a Priest 
have transformed into the person of the Saviour of the world, 
our senses cannot be regarded as worthy of our confidence, how 
are we to know when to trust them at all? Why may not all 
our impressions of color, of touch, and of taste, be just as delu- 
sive as those which deceive us in reference to this bread ? There 
can be no other evidence of any sensible phenomena than is 
possessed of the fact that the wafer is bread ; and if this evi- 

absolute skepticism ; — the impossibility of all philosophy is involved in the ne- 
gation of the one criterion of truth. Our statement may be reduced to a dilem- 
ma. Either the facts of consciousness can be reconciled, or they cannot. If 
they cannot, knowledge absolutely is impossible, and every system of philosophy 
therefore false. If they can, no system which supposes their inconsistency can 
pretend to truth. As a legitimate skeptic, Hume could not assail the founda- 
tions of knowledge in themselves. His reasoning is from their subsequent con- 
tradiction to their original falsehood ; and his premises, not established by him- 
self, are accepted only as principles universally conceded in the previous schools 
of philosophy. On the assumption, that what was thus unanimously admitted 
by philosophers, must be admitted of philosophy itself, his argument against the 
certainty of knowledge was triumphant. Philosophers agreed in rejecting cer- 
tain primitive beliefs of consciousness as false, and in usurping others as true. 
If consciousness, however, were confessed to yield a lying evidence in one par- 
ticular, it could not be adduced as a creditable witness at all ; — falsus in uno, 
falsus in omnibus. But as the reality of our knowledge necessarily rests on 
the assumed veracity of consciousness, it thus rests on an assumption implicitly 
admitted by all systems of philosophy to be legitimate. 

" Faciunt, nae, intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant." — Edinburgh Eeview, vol. 
li. pp. 196, 7. 



94 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

dence is fallacious and uncertain, the existence of matter may 
be a chimera, or the speculation of Spinoza may not be unsound, 
that only one substance obtains in the universe, and that sub- 
stance is God. If Rome is to be believed, in opposition to the 
senses, the paramount authority of our primary convictions is at 
once overthrown ; the constitution of our nature is rendered sub- 
ject to suspicion ; the measures of truth are involved in per- 
plexity, and man is set afloat upon the boundless sea of specula- 
tion, without chart, compass, or rudder. The standard by which 
opinions must be ultimately tried, is called into question, and 
the only thing which can be regarded as absolutely certain, is 
the utter uncertainty of every thing on earth. It is intuitively 
clear, that if our faculties cannot be trusted in one case which 
falls within the sphere of their legitimate jurisdiction, they can- 
not be trusted in another. If they cannot be credited when, 
with every mark of truth, they inform us of physical phenomena, 
they can no more be credited when they inform us of the infalli- 
bility of the Church ; if our primary convictions are doubtful, 
all other impressions must be delusive and deceitful. So far as 
we are able to ascertain, one thing, under such circumstances, 
is just as true as another; the sophist is the only philosopher; 
skepticism the only form of wisdom. 

In conformity with what reason would lead us to expect, we 
find, from actual experience, that in papal countries, where the 
infallibility of the Church is maintained without limitation or 
reserve, the intelligent members of the community have no real 
belief in any of the distinctive doctrines of religion. Hence, too, 
the chair of St. Peter has been so frequently filled by those who 
despised every principle embraced in the noble confession of that 
distinguished Apostle. Leo X., John XXIII., and Clement 
VII., Cardinal Bembo, Ficinus, Politian, Pomponatius, Portius, 
Aretin, and a host of others, distinguished alike by their offices 
and attainments, in the very heart of the papal dominions, are 
as renowned in the annals of atheism, as in the history of reli- 
gious hypocrisy. 

The schoolmen, indeed, did not hesitate to maintain the 
assertion that opinions might be philosophically true, and yet 
theologically false, or theologically true, and at the same time 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 95 

philosophically false.* In other words, they maintained that 
truth might consist with open contradictions, which is equiva- 
lent to saying that its existence was impossible, or, at least, in- 
conceivable. There can be no doubt that the speculations of 
the schoolmen prepared the way for the extensive desolations of 
what has been called philosophical infidelityt in modern times, 

* " The subtle doctors of the schools not only explained the mysteries of re- 
ligion in a manner conformable to the principles of their presumptuous logic, and 
modified them according to the dictates of their imperfect reason, but also pro- 
pagated the most impious sentiments and tenets concerning the Supreme Being, 
the material world, the origin of the universe, and the nature of the soul. And 
when it was objected to these sentiments and tenets that they were in direct 
contradiction to the genius of Christianity and to the express doctrines of 
Scripture, these scholastic quibblers had recourse for a reply, or rather, for a 
method of escape, to that perfidious distinction which has frequently been em- 
ployed by modern deists, that these tenets were philosophically true and con- 
formable to right reason, but that they were indeed theologically false and con- 
trary to the orthodox faith." — Mosh. Cent. 13, pt. ii.c. 3. 

t Many valuable hints concerning the connection betwixt the scholastic phi- 
losophy, and the skepticism by which it was rapidly succeeded, may be found 
in Ogilvie's Inquiry into the causes of infidelity and skepticism. The seed was 
evidently planted by the schoolmen of the middle ages, which subsequently 
bore such bitter fruit ; they encouraged the spirit of captious dialectics, that 
absurd inattention to the fundamental laws of belief as the basis of philosophy, 
which, in other hands, was to subvert the foundations of all that was fair, 
venerable, or sacred. The reader may be pleased with the following extract 
from a learned and valuable work : 

" Imo, unde scholastici suas quodlibeticas et frivolas questiones, nisi ex hac 
scepticismi lacuna, hauserunt. Hoc bene notavit Jansenius {August, torn. ii. 
proem, lib. cap. 28). Scholastici, inquit, nimio philosophiae amore quasi ebrii, 
arcana ilia mysteria gratia sepulta, deletaque secundum humanae rationis reg- 
ulas eruere, penetrare, formare, judicare, voluerant. Hinc ille ardor de quolibet 
disputandi, quidlibet eorum in dubium revocandi. Hinc eorum theologia innu- 
merabilium opinionum farragine referta est, per quas fere omnia, quantum- 
cunque contraria, facta sunt probabilia ; quae secundum eorum pronuntiata, 
cuilibet tueri licet. Ita vix quicquam certi, praeter fidem, formandarum opin- 
ionum novarum promptitudo reliquum fecit. Pracipitii enim poena, suspen- 
dium ctto^tj hoc est, temeritatis omsis hesitantia et incertitudo. Nihil enim 
naturalius et vicinius quam ut homines ex Peripateticis fiant Academici, quo- 
rum illi, sublucente ratiuncula, sententiam extemplo precipitant ; hi, temeritatis 
ducti, poenitentia, semper hesitant ; et nunc hoc, nunc illud, animo fluctuante, 
displicit, placet ; unde fit ut quod eis hodie probabile est, eras falsum judicetur." 
— Galai Philos. General, par. ii. lib. i. c. 4. 



96 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

and just as little doubt that the violence which is offered by the 
creed of Rome to the original principles of human belief, intro- 
duced the schoolmen into those curious refinements of perverse 
dialects, which effectually destroyed the unity of truth, but with- 
out which they were compelled to abandon the infallible dicta of 
an arrogant community. Modern infidelity, in all its forms, is 
much more intimately connected with the influence of the papacy 
than seems to be generally apprehended. From the very nature 
of the case, Popery must be the parent of skepticism — and the 
dogmas of Rome cannot be admitted without making a double 
standard of truth, and destroying all its consistency and har- 
mony. Those, however, who are not prepared for the dreary 
shades of unmitigated skepticism, will much prefer the legiti- 
mate conclusions of their own understanding, to the wretched 
tattle of the papal Priesthood. Fully assured that a standard of 
truth, in reality, exists, uniform and stable, they can never be- 
lieve that God has subjected their minds to the control of men 
who can deliberately trifle with the constitution of their nature, 
and make its inherent propensities and instinctive faith a matter 
of mockery. The very fact that these miserable guides contra- 
dict the universal bias of mankind, is sufficient to show that they 
are blind leaders of the blind, and that instead of having a com- 
mission from heaven, they derive their claims from the father of 
lies. God Himself, in His acknowledged revelations, appeals 
to the authority of our primary convictions. The miracles of 
Jesus Christ were addressed to the senses — to human eyes and 
human ears — and in all His expostulations with the Jews, our 
Saviour evidently assumes the absolute certainty of sense and 
consciousness — the ultimate sources of all human knowledge, as 
well as the irresistible authority of those original principles which 
constitute the tests of truth. We cannot conceive, indeed, that 
a Divine revelation could be possibly authenticated without as- 
suming the credibility of our faculties. To shake our confidence 
in them is to render belief impossible, no matter what may be 
the subject proposed, or the evidence submitted. It is idle, in 
fact, to talk of evidence, which is only the light in which the 
mind perceives the reality of truth, if all our perceptions are to 
be called into question, or involved in uncertainty. Any pre- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 97 

tended teacher, therefore, who does not authenticate his claims 
to Divine authority by performing miracles, which none could 
achieve unless God were with him ; any teacher who belies his- 
pretensions by opening his mouth in what every law of our nature 
requires us to denounce as falsehood, must be regarded as a 
child of darkness, the enemy of light, and the foe of man. No 
divine revelation can be more certain than the testimony of 
sense, or the evidence of consciousness. Through one of these 
sources every idea must be conveyed to the mind — and whatever 
teacher undertakes to set them aside, is the father of skepticism, 
and requires of man a homage, which though he may profess to 
render, it is utterly impossible to pay. If the evidence that such 
a teacher were really sent from God, was equal to the evidence 
of sense or consciousness, the mind would then be involved in 
that state of contradiction in which it is impossible to form an 
opinion — the teacher and our nature, like two negatives in Eng- 
lish, would destroy each other, and our real faith would be ex- 
pressed by a cipher. The mind, in other words, would be a 
perfect blank — a stagnant pool of ignorance and doubt — a mere 
chaos of discordant elements — the sport of endless confusion and 
caprice. It is vain to pretend that we honor God, in cordially 
receiving what the constitution of our nature prompts us to 
reject — that the merit of the faith is enhanced by the difficulties 
which we struggle to subdue. When these difficulties arise 
from perverse dispositions, from stubborn prejudices, impetuous 
passions, or pride of understanding, there may be some founda- 
tion for the plea — but when they lie in the very nature of the 
evidence, he that commends his faith on such ground, glories in 
the fact that his assent is strong just in proportion as the evi- 
dence is weak, and amounts to absolute certainty when, upon the 
most favorable hypothesis that can be made in the case, there is, 
in truth, no evidence at all. The papist, for instance, may 
regard it as a wonderful triumph of devout respect for the author- 
ity of God, that he really believes that bread and wine are trans- 
formed into the person of his glorious Redeemer, the accidents 
of bread and wine remaining still unchanged.* But then it is 

* Trent teaches that by the consecration of the bread and wine the whole 



93 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

impossible that the evidence in favor of this supposition can ever 
be stronger than the evidence against it. Let us grant that it 
may be equal. What, then, is the real state of the case? God, 
in the constitution of our nature, requires us to believe the reality 
of the bread; through an infallible Church He requires us to 
believe the nature of the change. We are just as certain that 
He speaks through the essential constitution of the human mind, 
<fs through a general Council of the Roman Church. To say, 
therefore, that we honor Him by despising our nature, and being 
absolutely certain that the Church is right, is just to say that 
when the evidence is precisely on a poise, it is insulting to God 
not to disregard His first revelation through the reason of man. 
Transubstantiation is not a mystery, but an absurdity — not a 
difficulty, but a contradiction — not something which transcends 
the legitimate province of reason, but a fact which is repugnant 
to every principle of human belief — a fact which no man can 
receive without denying the paramount authority of those ele- 
mentary truths which are implanted in our nature, as the germ 
of all subsequent knowledge and philosophy — and without which 
even the infallibility of a teacher cannot possibly be proved. 
Rome, then, in proposing this dogma as an article of faith, is 
the patron of skepticism, and undermines the very foundation on 
which alone she can rest her authority to dictate at all. In requir- 
ing us to believe this monstrous absurdity, she is guilty of the 
equally stupendous folly of requiring us to believe, and at the 
same time deny, the certainty of sense as a means of information 
— to believe the certainty of sense, in order to substantiate the 
infallibility of the Church, which ultimately rests on the divine 
commission of Christ, as established by miracles addressed to the 
senses, and acknowledged by them tD be indisputable facts — to 

substance of the bread is converted into the substance of the body of Christ 
our Lord, and the whole substance of the wine, into the substance of his blood 
(Sess. XIII. chap. 4) ; that Christ, whole and entire, exists under the species of 
bread, and in every particle thereof, and under the species of wine and in all 
its parts (Ibid. c. 3). Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, says the 
Council in chap. 1, is truly, reallv, and substantially contained in the pure 
sacrament of the holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, 
and under the species of those sensible objects. 



AFOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 99 

deny the certainty of sense in order to sustain the enormous 
figment that all the sensible properties of the bread can remain 
unchanged after its substance has been physically transmuted 
into the complex person of the Divine Redeemer. How such 
egregious trifling with the intellectual nature of mankind differs 
from the false philosophy of Hume, in its legitimate effects and 
inevitable tendencies, I leave to be determined by those who are 
fond of a riddle or tickled with a paradox. It is enough for me 
to know that no one can consistently be a papist without ceasing 
to be a man, nor subscribe to the infallible dogmas of that apos- 
tate community, without virtually inculcating that truth is a fic- 
tion, and evidence " of all our vanities, the motliest, the merest 
word that ever fooled the ear from out the schoolman's j argon. " 
The history of Greek philosophy and the controversies on the 
subject of transubstantiation reveal a remarkable coincidence be- 
twixt the ancient skeptics of Greece and the modern doctors of 
Rome : they are alike in the principles with which they set out, 
and remarkably alike in the positive but inconsistent dogmatism 
upon the most solemn and important subjects, with which they 
professed to terminate their inquiries. The distinctive features 
of the school of Pyrrho may be accurately ascertained from his 
division of philosophy, and the answers which he gives to those 
great questions which naturally arise from his distribution of the 
subject. " Whoever, 5 ' says the founder of this ill-omened sect, 
" whoever would live happily ought to look to three things ; first, 
how things are in themselves ; secondly, in what relation man 
stands to them ; and lastly, what will be the inevitable conse- 
quence of such relations." The followers of this blind and in- 
fatuated guide called into question the veracity of the senses, 
and endeavored to show that there was no unalterable standard 
of truth in conformity with which our judgments should be formed. 
They regarded mankind as walking literally in a vain show, and 
pronounced it to be impossible to ascribe with certainty any real 
existence to the objects which surround us. Hence they recom- 
mended a suspension of judgment — an entire absence from all 
positive assertion, as the dictate of wisdom. Their propositions 
were to be thrown into the form of questions, not that the an- 
swers could ever be determined, but that the uncertainty of 



100 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

knowledge might be clearly indicated, and the vacancy of the 
mind distinctly acknowledged. This fluctuating state of opin- 
ion, or rather this abstinence from any thing sufficiently positive 
to be called opinion, was regarded by the skeptics as the true 
method of securing felicity. To embrace skepticism was to em- 
brace a life of tranquillity, in which the indifference of the mind 
to truth and falsehood happily responded to the uncertainty of 
things — and as nothing was allowed to be real, the anxieties of 
hope, the perturbations of fear, and all the inquietude of pas- 
sion, were suppressed by the removal of the causes which pro- 
duce them. This was the theory, but the rules of life which 
these philosophers prescribed, (and in this matter with a strange 
inconsistency they were dogmatical and positive,) were com- 
pletely at war with their speculative doctrines. They recom- 
mended a moderation of desire which evidently implied that 
there were real causes in existence to disturb the equanimity of 
the sonl — and, like the Romanists, while in one breath they re- 
jected the authority of the senses, in the very next they assumed 
their information as the basis of practical wisdom. 

It will be remembered that, in the progress of opinion, the 
skeptics introduced the Epicureans. The true tendency of 
Pyrrhonism is to destroy all interest in human affairs — to bring 
about a state of complete indifference — to shroud the mind in a 
listless apathy — to produce an intellectual swoon, in which, 
though the powers exist, their exercise is entirely suspended. 
To confound the distinctions of truth and falsehood, to render 
knowledge impossible or certainty absurd, is to divest the mind 
of all motive to exertion and remove from character the stability 
of principle. The investigation of truth is the proper employ- 
ment of the human understanding — the possession of truth con- 
stitutes its wealth — the love of truth its glory — and sympathy 
with truth its health and vigor. A greater curse cannot, conse- 
quently, be inflicted on the race than to repress the mind in its 
noble aspirations by pronouncing its pursuits to be vain and nu- 
gatory. Society could not exist — every faculty of the soul 
would wither, and pine, and die, unless something were admit- 
ted — something cherished and loved. To deny that there are 
any principles in any departmeut of human inquiry on which 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 101 

we may repose with confidence and safety, is to reduce man to 
a condition of torpor which nature cannot and will not tolerate. 
The activity of the soul must be exerted, and if debarred from 
the generous pursuit of truth, it will vent its inclinations in law- 
less pleasure, and gratify its lusts with unrestrained licentious- 
ness. The sophists are the natural precursors of atheists and 
libertines. It was so in Greece — it was so in the middle ages — 
it is still so where the Roman hierarchy is unchecked in its in- 
fluence by the warning and example of Protestant teachers. 
The reality of the passions, of pride, ambition, avarice and re- 
venge, is a matter of feeling which the refinements of skepticism 
are unable to dissipate. These will exert unlimited sway where 
the sacred majesty of truth has been disrobed of its power — these 
will remain as certainties when all other things are involved in 
doubt ; and skepticism can do no more, from the very nature of 
man, than to remove the checks from appetite and lust, and give 
the reins to the indulgence of desire. In charging, therefore, 
the Church of Rome with embracing the fundamental principles 
of skepticism, I bring an awful accusation against her. She 
disturbs the foundations of society — she sanctions principles 
which, if legitimately carried out, would obliterate all science, 
all morality, all regulated freedom, and all religion. Instead of 
being the representative of Christ, who came to bear witness to 
the truth, she stands on the same platform with Pyrrhonists, So- 
phists, Atheists and Epicureans. Hence we should not be sur- 
prised that Rome is now and ever has been, in every period of 
her history, the mortal enemy of free discussion. Those who 
acknowledge no invariable standard of truth must regard inves- 
tigation as idle and argument as vain. And Rome, too, is just 
skeptic enough to discard all sense of moral obligation, and to 
gratify her characteristic lusts, ambition and avarice, without the 
annoyances of compunction and remorse. These passions, like 
beasts of prey, seek the cover of darkness for their crimes — and 
the history of the past affords the fullest authority for saying that 
Rome has found it convenient to envelope truth in obscurity, in 
order that she might promote her own aggrandizement without 
molestation or disturbance. Nothing, indeed, can more strik- 
ingly illustrate her indifference to truth, and the steady zeal 



102 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

with which she pursues her purposes of pride, than her shameful 
policy in reference to books. Her expurgatory and prohibitory 
indexes embrace the choicest monuments of learning — her sons 
are debarred from holding communion with the master-spirits of 
the race, to whom science, philosophy, and liberty, are under the 
deepest obligations. Among the works which to this day are 
proscribed by the proper authorities at Rome are the writings of 
Bacon, Milton, and Locke. Even the more liberal of her own 
children, who have had the audacity to prefer candor to the in- 
terests of the hierarchy, have been rudely enrolled on the list of 
proscription. Dupin, DeThou, and Fenelon, stand side by side 
with Cave, Robertson, and Bingham. Rome dreads nothing so 
much as liberty of thought. Light is death to her cause — and 
consequently truth, philosophy, and reason — the book of God and 
the books of men must be suppressed, silenced, and condemned, 
lest the slumbers of the people should be broken — the sun of 
righteousness arise — and the frauds and impostures of an arro- 
gant community exposed to the gaze of day. She can only 
flourish among a nation of sophists, among a people who have 
lost the love of truth, and seek from authority what ought to be 
sustained by evidence. 

To the papal sect we are also indebted for the first restraints 
upon the freedom of the press.* Till the unhallowed usurpa- 

* " The first instances of books printed with Imprimaturs, or official per- 
missions, are two printed at Cologne, and sanctioned by the University in 1479 
(one of them a Bible), and another at Heidelberg, in 1480, authorized by the 
Patriarch of Venice ; and the oldest mandate that is known for appointing a 
Book-Censor is one issued by Berthold, Archbishop of Mentz, in the year 1486, 
forbidding persons to translate any books out of the Latin, Greek, or other 
languages, into the vulgar tongue, or, when translated, to sell or dispose of 
them, unless admitted to be sold by certain doctors and masters of the univer- 
sity of Erfurt. In 1501, Pope Alexander VI. published a Bull prohibiting any 
books to be printed without the approbation of the Archbishops of Cologne, 
Mentz, Tiers, and Magdeburg, or their Vicars-General, or officials in spirituals, 
in those respective, provinces. The year following, Ferdinand and Isabella, 
sovereigns of Spain, published a royal ordinance charging the Presidents of the 
Chancellaries of Valladolid and Ciudad Real, and the Archbishops of Toledo, 
Seville, and Grenada, and the Bishops of Burgos, Salamanca, and Zamora, with 
every thing relative to the examination, censure, impression, importation, and 
sale of books. In the Council of Lateran, held under Leo X.,in 1515, it was 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 103 

tions of Rome had devised the expedient of suppressing thought 
by preventing its propagation, " books," says Milton, " were ever 
as freely admitted into the world as any other birth — the issue of 
the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb ; no 
envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man's in- 
tellectual offspring ; but if it proved a monster, who denies but 
that it was justly burnt or sunk into the sea? But that a book, 
in worse condition than a peccant soul, should be to stand before 
a jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo, yet in darkness, 
the judgment of Rhadamanth and his colleagues, ere it can pass 
the ferry backwards into light, was never heard before, till that 
mysterious iniquity, provoked and troubled at the first entrance 
of reformation, sought out new limbos and new hells wherein 

decreed that no book should be printed at Rome, nor in other cities and dio- 
ceses, unless, if at Rome, it had been examined by the Vicar of his Holiness 
and the Master of the Palace ; or, if elsewhere, by the Bishop of the diocese, 
or a doctor appointed by him, and had received the signature, under pain of 
excommunication and burning of the book/' — Townley's Essays on various 
subjects, tyc. 

The above extract has been taken from Mendham's Literary Policy of the 
Church of Rome — a work which condenses much rare and valuable informa- 
tion, illustrating the savage ferocity of Popes and Councils in reference to the 
independent productions of the human mind. The infamous decree of the 
Council of Lateran was confirmed by Trent, and Rome is to-day as bigoted 
and bitter, as much the enemy of light and knowledge, as she was three hun- 
dred years ago. The Encyclical Letter of the present Pope, dated August 15, 
1832, among other precious maledictions of the rights of man, denounces the 
"fatal and detestable liberty of publishing whatever one chooses" — (deterrima 
ilia ac nunquam satis execranda et detestabilis libertas artis librariae ad scripta 
quaelibet edendain vulgus) and the Letter of Cardinal Barthelemi Pacca, dated 
August 16, 1832, addressed to the Abbe de Mennais, which may be regarded 
as an authoritative exposition of the Encyclical Letter itself, condemns the doc- 
trines of the Avinci — a periodical publication which exerted great influence at 
the time, in reference to freedom of religion, and the freedom of the press. Lib- 
eral sentiments on these subjects the Cardinal declares to be highly reprehen- 
sible, inconsistent alike with the doctrines, the maxims, and the practice of the 
Church. In July, 1§34, the Pope issued another infernal bulletin against light, 
knowledge, and liberty, occasioned by a new work of Mennais, entitled the 
Words of a Believer. This document far surpasses, in the violence of its tyran- 
nical principles, the Encyclical Letter of August 15. These facts show what 
Rome now is. I allude to them now incidentally, as I shall have occasion 
hereafter to notice them more fully. 



104 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

they might include our books also within the number of the 
damned. " 

How the literary policy of Rome can be reconciled with any 
decent regard for the authority of truth or the enlargement of 
the mind it is impossible to discover. If truth indeed be " strong 
next to the Almighty, she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor 
licensings to make her victorious — these are the shifts and de- 
fences that error uses against her power. " It is the owls and bats 
of the world that love to expatiate in darkness — the eagle gazes 
on the sun, and his flight is as lofty as his vision is clear. Truth 
rises from the conflicts of discussion noble and puissant — untar- 
nished by the smoke and dust of the collision, she shakes her in- 
vincible locks, and, like a strong man, refreshed by reason of 
wine, rejoices to run her race. That cause which is propped by 
prohibitions and anathemas — which appoints spiritual midwives 
to slay the man-children born into the world — which, like kings, 
is stronger in legions than in arguments, bears a shrewd pre- 
sumption on its face, that it is not the cause of the Father of 
lights. 

It is a beautiful arrangement of infinite wisdom that they who 
assert so stupendous a claim as that of infallibility, without the 
least proof of Divine authority, should yet so completely stumble 
on the very threshold of philosophy as to make their stupidity 
much more remarkable than their pretensions to knowledge. It 
would be amusing, if it were not so humiliating, to see these arro- 
gant empirics swelling with pompous promises to dispel all doubt, 
obscurity and confusion from the doctrines of religion, and to 
establish Christianity upon the firm basis of infallible truth ; 
while the words have scarcely escaped from their lips, before 
they contradict every principle of human belief, and teach us to 
regard all certainty and evidence as mere chimeras. They prom- 
ise to give us infallible assurance, and end by instructing us that 
such a thing as assurance is utterly impossible. Surely they are 
the men, and wisdom will die with them ! — How true it is that 
the wicked are ensnared in the work of their own hands — how 
true the exclamation of the poet : 

" Oh what a tangled web we weave, 
When first we. practise to deceive." 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 105 

LETTER VII. 

Papal Infallibility shown to be conducive to licentiousness and immorality. 

Any system of philosophy or religion which sanctions the 
mutability of moral distinctions, or introduces a fluctuating 
standard of duty, is fatal to the highest interests of man. Truth 
and virtue, the most important objects of sublunary pursuit, are 
alike unchanging and eternal. The moral and intellectual natures 
of men are so intimately connected, their mutual dependence so 
nicely adjusted, their action and reaction so perfect and complete, 
that confusion of understanding is always accompanied with cor- 
responding lubricity of principle, and he whose perceptions of 
truth are not remarkable for clearness and precision will, most 
surely, be distinguished by an equal obscurity in his conceptions 
of rectitude. The moral duties which we are required to per- 
form are first contemplated as speculative principles, whose truth 
must be submitted to the decision of reason before they can be 
received as authoritative laws whose precepts we are bound to 
obey. The truth of right is an inquiry necessarily prior in the 
order of nature to the obligation of right. The conviction of 
the understanding must always precede the sanction of con- 
science. Hence those philosophers are not to be rashly con- 
demned who attribute to the same faculty of the mind the 
power of distinguishing betwixt right and wrong, which, it is 
confessed, distinguishes betwixt truth and falsehood. The men- 
tal processes are so nearly identical, that it seems to be an unne- 
cessary multiplication of original powers to have a peculiar un- 
derstanding conversant only about moral truth, while another 
understanding is admitted to exist which deals in truth of every 
other kind. Our faculties, which are only convenient names for 
the various operations of a simple and indivisible substance, de- 
rive their appellations not from the specific differences of the ob- 
jects about which they are employed, but from their general 
nature. The discovery of truth is as much an end to the moral 
philosopher who is seeking to determine the standard of duty, and 
to settle what ought to he, as well as what is, as it is to the phy- 

6 



106 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

sical inquirer whose investigations cannot be legitimately pushed 
beyond the province of existing phenomen.a. The same laws of 
evidence, the same original principles, the same elements of 
human belief, and the same process of patient induction, are, or 
ought to be, common to both, and can no more be discarded with 
impunity by the one than they can by the other. Hence <a 
variable or fluctuating standard of truth necessarily introduces a 
variable and fluctuating standard of morals — whatever system 
legitimates error, to the same extent legitimates crime — whatever 
blinds the understanding, corrupts the heart. The moral nature 
is always involved in the same ruin with the intellectual consti- 
tution. Rude and barbarous nations are as much indebted to 
imbecility of reason, superinduced by neglect of cultivation or 
false associations, for their mistaken apprehensions of good and 
evil, as to depravity of taste or perverseness of moral sensibility. 
Their deeds" of darkness are performed without compunctious 
visitings of conscience, not because that messenger of God slum- 
bers in the breast, or is bribed by the sinner to hold its peace, 
but because that light is extinguished, without which it is im- 
possible to recognize the authority of law. The moral affections 
can no more expand nor take root downwards and bear fruit up- 
wards while the understanding — the true sun of the intellectual 
system — is veiled in darkness, than the plants and herbage of 
nature can flourish in beauty and luxuriance without the genial 
light of the day. The sense of obligation is always just in pro- 
portion to the enlargement of the mind with liberal views of the 
relations of mankind : and although the knowledge of the right 
does not necessarily secure its practice, it does secure, what is of 
vast importance to society, remorse to the guilty, and a homage 
of respect to the good. He that acknowledges a legitimate 
standard of moral obligation will find in his conscience a check 
to those crimes, which, through weakness, he is unable to suppress 
— a restraint upon those passions, which, through frailty, cannot 
be subdued. The transgressor who violates rules of unques- 
tioned authority, which his own understanding has received as 
right, will assuredly drive tranquillity from his bosom and repose 
from his couch. He sins, indeed, but without that moral hardi- 
hood which attaches to those who, in their blindness and igno- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 107 

ranee, put light for darkness, and bitter for sweet. They are 
the most dangerous offenders who tamper with the principles of 
rectitude itself, who seek to escape the reproaches of conscience, 
by degrading the standard of moral obligation — who pursue 
peace at the expense of truth, and extinguish the light that they 
may not behold the calamity of their state. The abandoned 
condition of the Gentile world, which the Apostle so graphically 
describes in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, is 
ultimately traced to the vanity of their thoughts, and the dark- 
ness of their minds, and those to whom the gospel is hid, have 
their minds " blinded by the god of this world, lest the light of 
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should 
shine unto them," and " reveal the glory of the Lord " by the 
contemplation of which they might be transformed " into the 
same image from glory to glory." The love of speculative truth, 
and integrity of purpose, are graces of character so closely affi- 
liated — they are so evidently the offspring of the same general 
condition of the mind, that he who aspires to the praise of hon- 
esty, must not forget the necessity of candor, and he who would 
adorn his heart with the highest excellence of which it is suscep- 
tible, must enrich his understanding with corresponding posses- 
sions. The love of truth is honesty of reason, as the love of 
virtue is honesty of heart ; and so impossible is it to cultivate the 
moral affections at the expense of the understanding, that they 
who receive not the truth in the love of it, are threatened in the 
Scriptures with the most awful malediction that can befall a 
sinner in his sublunary state : an eclipse of the soul and a blight 
upon the heart, which are the certain forerunners of the second 
death. There is hope of reformation so long as the principles 
remain uncorrupted, but when the light which is in us is con- 
verted into darkness — when lies are greedily embraced and 
errors deliberately justified, the climax of guilt has been reached, 
the ruin of the character is complete, and the perdition of the 
soul, without a stupendous miracle of grace, seems to be inevita- 
ble. Shame and remorse, the usual channels through which 
amendment is produced, are always the result of consciousness 
of error — an affection which is utterly inconsistent with that 



108 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

complete degradation of the mind to which thousands have been 
sunk, and in which error is neither lamented nor admitted. 

From the intimate alliance which subsists betwixt the stand- 
ard of truth, and the standard of morality, it follows as a neces- 
sary consequence, that skepticism is fatal to the interests of 
virtue. It destroys the immutability of moral distinctions ; makes 
duty dependent upon circumstances ; or rather, denies the reality 
of duty apart from convictions of utility or pleasure. He who 
trifles with the constitution of his nature in those primary con- 
victions which lie at the foundation of all knowledge and philo- 
sophy, is cherishing a temper which shall soon rise in rebellion 
against the authority of conscience, and extinguish the only light 
that can convict him of crime. From the obscurity and con- 
fusion which have shrouded the understanding, may be antici- 
pated a deeper gloom which is soon to settle on the heart. Spec- 
ulation must ultimately end in practice, and if the waters are 
poisoned at the fountain, death must be expected to overspread 
the land. That the moral conduct of skeptics has not always 
been answerable to the looseness of their principles, is not to be 
ascribed to a redeeming virtue in the principles themselves, but 
to the restraints of society, and to the voice of nature, which 
skepticism had not been able to suppress. The tendency exists, 
though accidental hinderances have retarded its development. 
Doubts about truth and evidence will conduct to doubts about 
rectitude and sin ; and he who shall finally conclude that truth 
is unattainable, must be a fool if he still believes that virtue is 
obligatory. These remarks, though they appear to me to be 
intuitively obvious, are felt to be necessary in order to rebuke 
the growing impression that speculative principles have no imme- 
diate influence in regulating conduct. We live in an age of 
sophists : a man may believe any thing or nothing; and yet if 
his actions are consistent with the standard of public decency, 
his principles are not to be condemned, his doctrines not to be 
assailed. If, however, there exist in the bosom of the Almighty 
an eternal standard of truth, from which the law of righteousness 
proceeds, in conformity with which the arrangements of Provi- 
dence are conducted, the relations of things adjusted, and by 
which alone the harmony of the world can be effectually pro- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 109 

moted, the first step towards communion with the Father of lights 
is to recognize that standard. The mind cannot move in charity 
nor rest in Providence, unless it turn upon the poles of truth. 
" The inquiry of truth," says Bacon, " which is the love-making 
or wooing of it ; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of 
it ; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the 
sovereign good of human nature. The first creature- of God, in 
the work of the days, was the light of sense; the last was the 
light of reason; and His Sabbath-work ever since, is the illumi- 
nation of His Spirit." 

In inculcating, therefore, a spirit of skepticism, and denying 
a permanent standard of truth, the Church of Rome impeaches 
the immutability of moral distinctions, and declares herself to 
be a child of the devil, and an enemy of all righteousness. She 
unsettles the foundations of right and wrong. She is as loose 
in her principles as she is corrupt in her practices. Consistently 
with her statements on the subject of transubstantiation, it is 
impossible to establish an unchanging standard of moral obliga- 
tion ; and as she evidently begins in Pyrrhonism, she must neces- 
sarily end in Epicureanism. The enormous corruptions of the 
clergy which provoked the indignation of Europe at the time of 
the Reformation ; their rapacity, licentiousness, and lust, were 
not the occasional abuses of wicked men, foreign to the system, 
and abhorrent to the principles of the mass of the church. They 
were the legitimate, natural, necessary results of that spirit of 
skepticism which Romanism must engender among all who 
reflect upon the foundations of knowledge or the nature of evi- 
dence. They were the bitter fruit of her graceless pretensions 
to infallibility. 

As the priesthood of Rome, in their mortal opposition to the 
natural measures of truth and certainty, have virtually claimed 
to be the arbiters of truth, it was not unreasonable to expect that 
they should likewise claim to be lords of the conscience, and 
the arbiters of duty. Hence we find, in fact, that by the name 
and pretended authority of God, they have instituted a standard 
of morality which completely sets aside the eternal principles of 
rectitude, and makes the interests of the papacy, which means 
nothing more than the wealth and power of the hierarchy, the 



110 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

supreme object of pursuit. That is right, according to the phi- 
losophy of Rome, which enlarges the dominion of the priests, or 
increases the revenues of the Pope. Actions take their moral 
complexion, not from their influence on the relations which men 
sustain to society, or the relations in which they stand to their 
God, but from the bearing which they have upon the temporal 
grandeur of the Roman See. The papists, like the Scriptures, 
divide mankind into two great classes; but the righteous, ac- 
cording to Rome, are not those who are distinguished by works 
of faith, benevolence, and charity, these she has felt it her special 
vocation to pursue, in every corner of the earth, with fire and 
sword, with stripes and torture, imprisonment and death. Moral 
accomplishments are nothing, in her eye, as she acknowledges no 
standard of duty, which does not award to her the sublime posi- 
tion which reason and the Scriptures accord to the Almighty, as 
centre of the moral system, to whom are all things, for whom are 
all things, and by whom are all things. Her just ones may be 
polluted by every crime which humanity can perpetrate ; by incest, 
adultery, murder, and treason — they may, like Hildebrande, be 
firebrands of hell — like John, the beastly impersonations of lust ; 
yet all is right — they are the salt of the earth, the excellent ones 
in whom Rome takes delight, if they prefer her interests above 
their chief joy. The supremacy of homage and affection which 
she claims for herself, places her on the throne of the Eternal, 
and regulates the standard of morality according to the measures 
which are best adapted to promote her authority, and completely 
sets aside the glory of God, which is and ought to be the chief 
end of man, and reverses all those arrangements of infinite wisdom 
by which the harmony of the universe has been nicely adjusted 
in accordance with the moral laws, which spring necessarily 
from the Divine perfections. He that makes the glory of God 
the end of his being, and the perfections of God his standard of 
rectitude, is certainly in unison with all that we know of that 
vast system of government, embracing the universe, and com- 
passing eternity, under which we live. But such grand and 
magnificent conceptions of duty, the views of the Bible, of truth, 
and of nature, find no encouragement from the niggard politicians 
of Rome. They see in man but a slave for their lusts, and their 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. ill 

whole system of morality is a sordid calculation of interest — 
their duties are feudal services — and the solemn sanctions of 
religion are only introduced to give currency and success to 
their nefarious frauds. Wealth and power are the watchwords 
of the hierarchy. The visible and invisible worlds are alike the 
sources of their merchandise; souls are their spoils, and the 
patronage of sin the ultimate issue of their policy. The doc» 
trine of indigencies, the practice of auricular confession, the 
system of penances, the invention of purgatory, and the detes- 
table principle of private masses, are only links in a chain of 
despotism, by which Rome binds the consciences of men, in 
order to seize the possession of their treasures. The whole 
scheme of papal abominations is directed with unerring saga- 
gacity to the secular aggrandizement of the clergy.* Every doc- 

* " What can we think of redeeming souls out of purgatory, or preserving 
them from it by tricks, or some mean pageantry, but that it is a foul piece of 
merchandise 1 What is to be said of implicit obedience, the priestly dominion 
over consciences, the keeping the Scriptures out of the people's hands and the 
worship of God in a strange tongue, but that these are so many arts to hood- 
wink the world, and to deliver it up into the hands of the ambitious clergy ? 
What can we think of superstition and idolatry of images, and all the other 
pomp of the Roman worship, but that by these things, the people were to be 
kept up in a gross notion of religion, as a splendid business, and that priests 
have a trick of saving them, if they will but take care to humor them, and 
leave that matter wholly in their hands ? And to sum up all, what can we 
think of that constellation of prodigies in the Sacrament of the Altar, but that 
it is an art to bring the world by wholesale to renounce their reason and sense, 
and to have a most wonderful veneration for a sort of men who can, with a 
word, perform the most astonishing thing that ever was." — Burnet, Hist. Eef. 

" Of all the contrivances to enthral mankind, and to usurp the entire com- 
mand of them, that of auricular confession appears the most impudent and the 
most effectual. That one set of men could persuade all other men that it was 
their duty to come and reveal to them every thing which they had done, and 
every thing which they meant to do, would not be credible if it were not proved 
by the fact. This circumstance rendered the clergy masters of the secrets of 
every family ; it rendered them, too, the universal advisers ; when any person's 
intentions were laid before a clergyman, it was his business to explain what 
was lawful and what was not, and under this pretext to give what counsel he 
pleased. In this manner the clergy became masters of the whole system 
of human life ; the two objects they chiefly pursued were, to increase the 
riches of the order, and to gratify their senses and pride. By using all their 
arts to cajole the great and wealthy, and attacking them in moments of weak- 



112 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

trine has its place in the scale of profit — power and money are 
the grand and decisive tests of truth and righteousness, and 
every principle is estimated by Rome according to its weight in 
the scales of ambition and avarice. Expediency, in its most 
enlarged acceptation, is a dangerous test of moral obligation, 
but when restricted to the contemptible ends which the papacy 
contemplates; when all the duties of mankind are measured by 
the interests, the secular interests, of a wicked corporation, we 
may rest assured that the most detestable vices will pass unre- 
buked, monsters of iniquity be canonized as saints, and the laws 
which hold the universe in order be revoked in subservience to 
the paltry purposes of sacerdotal intolerance. Rome claims the 
power of binding the conscience. She professes to wield the 
authority of God, and her injunctions, audacious as they are, she 
has the moral effrontery to proclaim in the name of the Most 
High. She consequently is, at once, a lawgiver and a judge- 
Truth is what she declares, and righteousness is what she 
approves. Such stupendous claims on the part of ignorant, 
erring, and sinful mortals as ourselves, must exert a disastrous 
influence on the purity of morals, and sanctify the filthy dreams 
of men, as the inspired revelations of the Father of truth. It is 

ness, sickness, and at the hour of death, they obtained great and numerous be- 
quests to the Church ; by abusing the opportunities they enjoyed with women, 
they indulged their lusts ; and by the direction they obtained in the manage- 
ment of every family and every event, they exercised their love of power, when 
they could not draw an accession of wealth." — Villers on Reform. 

The doctrine of private masses is one of the worst corruptions of the Rom- 
ish Church. What Rome teaches to be Jesus Christ is actually sold in the 
market — and the solemn oblation of the Son of God is professed to be made 
for dollars and cents. We have masses for penitents, masses for the dead, 
masses at privileged altars, all which command a price in the shambles and 
increase the revenue^ of the grasping priesthood. To the disgrace of the hier- 
archy, it deserves to be mentioned, that they frequently received large sums of 
money for masses, which they never had the honesty to say. Llorente tells us 
of a Spanish priest who had been paid for 11,800 masses whicfy he never said. 
We are informed of a Church in Venice, in 1743, that was in arrears for 16,400 
masses. What a traffic in human souls! Cheated of their money — cheated of 
their liberty — cheated of their hopes — cheated of salvation — how mournful the 
condition of blinded, infatuated papists. What a stupendous system for accu- 
mulating power and wealth in the hands of the clergy ! 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 113 

impossible, under such circumstances, but that interest should 
be made the ultimate standard of propriety, and the whole moral 
order of the universe involved in corresponding confusion, by 
making that which ought never to be an end, the supreme object 
of human pursuit. 

The moral system of the Jesuits, as developed in their secret 
instructions and the writings of their celebrated casuists, breathes 
the true spirit of the papacy. These men are the sworn subjects 
of the Roman Pontiff: to promote the interests of their sect is 
the single purpose of their lives; and their code of morality is 
based upon the principles which support the foundation of the 
Papal throne. In the Jesuits, consequently, we behold the le- 
gitimate effects of the Papal system — in them it is unrestrained 
by the voice of nature, the authority of conscience, or venera- 
tion for God. They are Papists — pure, genuine, unadulterated 
Papists; they have endeavored to divest themselves of every 
quality which is not in unison with the authority of Rome ; they 
have made the Pope their god for whom they live, in whom they 
trust, and to whom they have surrendered their health and 
strength and all things. It is only in them, or those who breathe 
a kindred spirit with themselves, that the true tendencies of Ro- 
manism have ever been fully developed. Thousands in Rome 
have not been able to be fully of Rome, and the influence of 
Popery has been secretly modified by numberless restraining 
circumstances in their position, relations, and condition of 
society. 

To take the doctrines of the Jesuits as the true standard of 
Papal authority cannot be censured as injustice by those who 
consider the intimate connection which subsists between licen- 
tiousness and skepticism. There is not a single distinctive 
feature of Jesuitism which may not be justified by the necessary 
tendencies of the acknowledged principles of Rome.* These 
men have embodied the spirit of the Church ; they have digested 
its doctrines into order ; they have reduced its enormities to 

* " One cannot condemn the Jesuits without condemning at the same time 
the whole ancient school of the Roman Church." — Claude's Defence of the 
Reformation. The proofs are furnished in connection with the passage. 

6* 



114 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

logical consistency, and held up before us a faithful mirror in 
which we may contemplate the hideous deformities of a body 
which claims to be the Church of God, but has inscribed in in- 
delible characters on its front, the synagogue of Satan. Hence, 
the papal guardians of the press, in their zeal to stem the tor- 
rent of falsehood and repress the spread of dangerous specula- 
tions, while they have eviscerated the Fathers, prohibited the 
writings of the early reformers, and condemned the most pre- 
cious monuments of philosophy and learning; have suffered the 
productions of Jesuitical casuists to stalk abroad into the light of 
day with the imprimatur of the Church upon them. These 
works are studied in Papal schools and colleges — systems formed 
in accordance with the doctrines of Molina have free circulation 
where Locke, Cud worth, and Bacon are not permited to enter. 
If the moral system of the Jesuits was unpalatable to Rome, why 
has the order been revived ; why has power been granted to its 
members to apply themselves to the education of youth, to direct 
colleges and seminaries, to hear confessions, to preach and adminis- 
ter the sacraments? Pius VII., in allusion to the Jesuits, and in 
vindication of his odious conduct in turning them loose to deso- 
late society, states " he would deem it a great crime towards God, 
if, amidst the dangers of the Christian republic, he should neglect 
to employ the aids which the special providence of God had put 
in his power; and if, placed in the bark of St. Peter, and tossed 
by continual storms, he should refuse to employ the vigorous and 
experienced rowers who volunteer their services." The peculiar 
services which the Jesuits have rendered to the interests of the 
papacy, have been owing to the lubricity of their moral princi- 
ples. It is not their superior zeal, but the superior pliancy of 
their consciences, which have made them such " vigorous and ex- 
perienced rowers," and in condescending to accept their labors, 
Rome has endorsed the enormities of their system, and actually 
sanctioned their atrocious immoralities. 

The most detestable principles of this graceless order have 
not only received in this way the indirect sanction of the head of 
the papacy, but may be found embodied in the recorded canons 
of general councils. That the end justifies the means — that the 
interests of the priesthood are superior to the claims of truth. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 115 

justice, and humanity, is necessarily implied in the decree of the 
Council of Lateran, that no oaths are binding — that to keep 
them is perjury rather than fidelity — which conflict with the ad- 
vantage of the Catholic Church. What fraud have the Jesuits 
-ever recommended or committed, that can exceed in iniquity 
the bloody proceedings of the Council of Constance, in reference 
to Huss ? What spirit have they ever breathed more deeply im- 
bued with cruelty and sfaughter, than the edict of Lateran to 
kings and magistrates to extirpate heretics from the face of the 
earth? The principle on which the sixteenth canon of the third 
Council of Lateran proceeds, covers the doctrine of mental re- 
servations. If the end justify the means — if we can be perjured 
with impunity to protect the authority of the priesthood, a good 
intention will certainly sanctify any other lie, and a man may 
be always sure that he is free from sin, if he can only be sure of 
his allegiance to Rome and his antipathy to heretics. 

The doctrine of probability is in full accordance with the 
spirit of the papacy, in substituting authority for evidence and 
making the opinions of men the arbiters of faith. And yet these 
three cardinal principles — -of intention, mental reservation, and 
probability — which are so thoroughly and completely papal — cover 
the whole ground of Jesuitical atrocity.* How absurd, then, to 
pretend that the tendencies of the Church should not be gathered 
from the system of the Jesuits ! On the contrary, it is plain that 
they are the only consistent exponents of Romish doctrine ; and 
should that Church ever rise to its former ascendancy among the 
nations of the earth, should it ever reclaim its ancient authority, 
the type which it would assume will be impressed upon it by the 
hands of the Jesuits. There is no standard, however, by which 
Rome can be judged, that can vindiate her character from 
flagrant immorality. Her priests, in all ages, have been the 
pests of the earth, and that inhuman law, which, for the purpose 
of wedding them more completely to the interests of the Church, 

* The Jesuit, Casnedi, maintained in a published work that, at the day of 
judgment, God will say to many, " Come, my well-beloved, you who have 
committed murder, blasphemed, &c, because you believed that in so doing, 
you were right." For a popular exposition of the morality of the Jesuits, the 
reader is referred to Pascal's Provincial Letters with Nichole's Notes, 



116 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

has debarred them from one of the prime institutions of God, has 
made them the dread of innocence and the horror of chastity. I 
take no pleasure in drawing the sickening picture of their de- 
pravity! The moral condition of Europe, at the time of the Re- 
formation, superinduced by the principles and policy of the 
Popes, the profligacy of the clergy, the corruption of the people, 
the gross superstition which covered the nations — these are the 
fruits of Papal infallibility. That apostate community com- 
menced its career by unsettling the standards of truth and know- 
ledge. Skepticism prepared the way for licentiousness. When 
the standard of truth was gone, the standard of morals could not 
abide; and as fixed principles were removed, nothing remained 
but the authority of Rome, who usurped the place of God, be- 
came the arbiter of truth to the understanding, and of morals to 
the heart, by making her own interests, her avarice, and ambition, 
the standard of both. 



LETTER VIII. 

Papal Infallibility, proved to be the patron of Superstition and Will-worship. 

When our Saviour declared to the woman of Samaria, God 
is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit 
and truth, he announced in this sublime proposition the just dis- 
tinction between pure aud undefiled religion and the various 
forms of superstition, idolatry, and will-worship. That the high- 
est felicity of man is to be found alone in sympathetic alliance 
with the Author of his being, is the dictate alike of experience, 
philosophy, and Scripture ; to restore the communion which sin 
had interrupted, to transform man again into the image of his 
Maker, and to fit his nature to receive communications of Divine 
love, is the scope and purpose of the Christian Revelation. 
Harmonious fellowship with God necessarily presupposes a know- 
ledge of His character; [being an interchange of friendship 
which cannot be conceived when the parties are strangers lo 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 117 

each other.] Hence the foundation of religion must be laid in 
a just (though from the nature of the case, it must be inade- 
quate) conception of the attributes of Deity, a proper apprehen- 
sion of His moral economy and a firm belief of that amazing 
condescension by which He becomes conversable with men. 
He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and that He is 
a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. The opposite ex- 
tremes of true religion, both equally founded in ignorance of 
God, though under different forms of application, are superstiton, 
and atheism. From atheism, which, as it dispenses with the 
sanctions of decency and morality, is a prolific fountain of bit- 
terness and death, proceed the waters of infidelity, blasphemy, 
profaneness and impiety ; from superstition, which distinguished 
philosophers,* in ancient and modern times, have pronounced to 
be more disastrous to the interest of man than atheism itself, 
flow the streams of idolatry, fanaticism and spiritual bondage. 
By a fatality of error, which seems to be characteristic of this 
grand apostacy, the Church of Rome is at once the patron of 
atheism and the parent of superstition. f Intent upon nothing 

* Plutarch and Bacon. Both have drawn the contrast between atheism 
and superstition, and both have expressed the opinion that atheism is the more 
harmless of the two. Warburton, in his Divine Legation, has reviewed the 
sentiments of both, with his usual ability and force. 

f That I am not singular in ascribing to the same cause, in different aspects, 
such opposite effects, will be seen from the following passages in works which 
have very few points of coincidence. 

" For infidelity and superstition are, for the most part, near allies, as pro- 
ceeding from the same weakness of judgment, or some corruption of heart. 
Those guilty fears and apprehensions of an avenging Deity, which drive some 
persons into superstition, do as naturally drive others of a more hard and stub- 
born temper into infidelity or atheism. The same causes, working differently 
in different persons, or in the same person at different times, produce both ; 
and it has been a common observation, justifiable by some noted instances, that 
no men whatever have been more apt to exceed in superstition, at the sight of 
danger, than those who at other times have been most highly profane" — Wa- 
terland's Works, p. 58. 

" Atheism and superstition are of the same origin : they both have their 
rise from the same cause, the same defect in the mind of man, our want of 
capacity in discerning the truth, and natural ignorance of the Divine essence. 
Men that from their most early youth have not been imbued with the princi- 



118 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

but her own aggrandizement, she asks of men only the decen- 
cies of external homage, and so they are content to swell her 
train and increase her power, it is a matter of comparative in- 
difference whether they acknowledge the existence of God, rev- 
erence His truth, love His character, or yield obedience to His 
laws. Her arbitrary pretensions to infallible authority disgust 
the intelligent; and while, like the heathen philosophers and the 
pagan priests, who occupied a higher form of knowledge than 
pertained to the vulgar, they silently acquiesce in existing insti- 
tutions, they maintain in their hearts a profound contempt for 
the whole system of popular delusion. 

That the Church of Rome encourages a mean and slavish 
superstition, will sufficiently appear from considering the nature 
of superstition itself. According to the etymology of Vossius,* 
it denotes religious excess. Any corruption of the true religion 
— every modification of its doctrines, or addition to its precepts, 
— comes, according to this view, under the head of superstition. 
In the estimation of others, its derivation imports a species of 
idolatry founded on the impression that the souls of the departed 
preserve their interest in sublunary things. t This sense is evi- 
dently embraced in the wider meaning of religious excess : and 

pies of the true religion, or have not afterwards continued to be strictly edu- 
cated in the same, are all in great danger of falling either into the one or the other, 
according to the difference there is in the temperament and complexion they 
are of, the circumstances they are in, the company they converse with." — Sec- 
ond part of the Fable of the Bees, p. 374. 

* " Quando in cultu ultra modum legitimum allquid superest, sive quando 
cultus modum rectum superstat atque excedit." — Eiymologicum. 

"But the word" (superstition), says Waterland, "properly imports any 
religious excesses, either as to matter, manner, or degree. There may be a 
superstitious awe, when it is wrong-placed, or of a wrong kind, or exceeds in 
measure ; and whenever we speak of a superstitious belief, or worship, or prac- 
tice, we always intend some kind of religious excess. Any false religion, or 
false part of a true one, is a species of superstition, because it is more than it 
should be, and betokens excess." — Waterland, Second Charge pt. ii. p. 57. 

t Warburton gives a different explanation : " The Latin word, supersti- 
tio, hath a reference to the love we bear to our children, in the desire that 
they should survive us, being formed upon the observation of certain religious 
practices deemed efficacious for procuring that happy event." — Div. Leg. b. iii. 
§ 6. For the view in the text, see Taylor, vol. v. p. 127, Heb. Edition. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 119 

we may consequently adopt with safety the more general accep- 
tation which the first etymology naturally suggests. 

The causes of superstition, as developed by illustrious writers 
of antiquity, as well as by modern philosophers and divines, in 
unison with the voice of universal experience, may be traced 
to the influence of zeal or fear in minds unenlightened by the 
knowledge of God.* Plutarch and Bacon concur in making the 
reproach or contumely of the Divine Being, in ascribing to Him 
a character which He does not deserve, of imperfection, weak- 
ness, cruelty and revenge, an essential element of this religious 
excess : Taylorf has copiously declaimed on fear as the fruit- 
ful source of superstitious inventions. Hooker| has shown that 
an ignorant zeal is as prolific in corruptions as servile dread ; 
and Bentley§ has proved that a multitude of observances which 
first commenced in simple superstition, were turned by the art- 
ful policy of Rome into sources of profit, so that the dreams of 
enthusiasts and the extravagance of ascetics received the sanction 
of infallible authority, and were proclaimed as expressions of the 
will of God. From the follies of mystics, the excesses of fa- 
natics, the legends of martyrs, and the frauds of the priesthood, 
whatever could be converted into materials of power, or made 
available to purposes of gain, has been craftily selected, and 
Romanism, as it now stands, is so widely removed from the sim- 
plicity of the gospel that only enough of similitude is preserved 
to make its deformity more clear and disgusting. It sustains, in 
fact, the same relations to primitive Christianity which ancient 
paganism sustained to the primeval revelations imparted to our 
race. It bears, to accommodate a simile of Bacon's, the same re- 
semblance to the true religion yhieh an ape bears to a man. 
To develope the corruptions of the papal hierarchy, whichstamp 
that Churchwith the impress of superstition, would be to tran- 
scribe its distinctive doctrines and peculiar practices. The 
range of discussion would be too vast for a limited essay. I shall 

* Timor inanis deorum. Cic. de. Nat. Deo. i. 42. 
t Vol. v. Sermon ix. 

X Ecclesiast. Polity, b. 5, chap. 3. The reader will find it an exquisite 
passage, but it is too long to introduce here. 
§ Sermon upon Popery, vol. iii., Works. 



120 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

therefore content myself with briefly showing how completely 
the Church of Rome is imbued with the spirit of ancient 
Paganism. * 

The pagan tendencies of Rome appear, in the first place, from 
the appeal which she makes to the assistance of the senses in aid- 
ing the conception and directing the worship of the Supreme 
Being. The pure and sublime idea which the Scriptures incul- 
cate of a spiritual God, neither possessed of a corporeal figure 
nor capable of being represented by visible symbols, is as much 
a stranger to the theology of Rome as to the " elegant mythology 
of Greece. " Hence we are told that " to represent the persons 
of the Holy Trinity by certain forms, under which, as we read 
in the Old and New Testaments, they deigned to appear is not 
to be deemed contrary to religion or the law of God. " Accord- 
ingly the second commandment is annulled by the hierarchy — 
in books of popular devotion it is wholly suppressed — the win- 
dows of papal churches are frequently adorned with images of the 
Trinity, the breviaries and mass-books are embellished with en- 
gravings which represent God the Father as a venerable old man, 
the Eternal Son in human form, and the blessed Spirit in the 
shape of a dove. Sometimes grotesque images, hardly surpassed 
in the fabulous creations of heathen poets, where centaurs, gor- 
gons, mermaids, with all manner of impossible things, hold un- 
disputed sway, are employed to give an adequate impression of 
Him who dwells in majesty unapproachable, whom no man hath 
seen or can see. To picture the Holy Trinity with three noses, 
and four eyes and three faces — and in this form these Divine per- 
sons are sometimes submitted to the devout contemplation of 
papal idolaters — is to give an idea of God from which an ancient 

* See this subject fully .and elaborately discussed in Gale's Court of the Gen- 
tiles, part 3, book iii. chap. 3. 

Bishop Horsley says — " The Church of Rome is at this day a corrupt Church 
— a Church corrupted with idolatry : with idolatry very much the same in kind 
and in degree, with the worst that ever prevailed among the Egyptians or the 
Canaanites, till within one or two centuries, at the most, of the time of Moses." 
— Dissert, on Prophecies of the Messiah dispersed among the Heathen; 
Woiks, vol. ii. p. 289. See also Bp. Bull's Corruptions of the Church of 
Borne. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. ]21 

Roman or a modern Hindoo might turn away in disgust. Such 
gross and extravagant symbols, however carefully explained or 
allegorically interpreted, involve a degradation of the Supreme 
Being, which it is impossible to reconcile with the sublime an- 
nouncement of our Saviour, that God is a spirit, and they that 
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The ador- 
ation which is paid to the Deity under any corporeal figure or 
visible representation, cannot be vindicated from the charge of 
idolatry upon any principles which do not exempt from the same 
imputation every form, whether ancient or modern, of pagan su- 
perstition. It is quite certain, from the accounts of heathen phi- 
losophers and poets, that the images of their Gods were regarded 
simply as visible memorials of invisible deities — as signs by 
which their affections were excited and through which their 
worship was directed. The veneration with which it was treated 
was purely of that relative kind which the Romish doctors im- 
pute to the devotees of their own communion. # Pagan statues 

* " Nor is it of any importance, whether they worship simply the idol, or 
God in the idol: it is always idolatry, when divine honors are paid to an idol, 
under any pretence whatsoever. And as God will not be worshipped in a super- 
stitious or idolatrous manner, whatever is conferred on idols, is taken from 
Him. Let this be considered by those who seek such miserable pretexts for 
the defence of that execrable idolatry with which, for many ages, true religion 
has been overwhelmed and subverted. The images, they say, are not consid- 
ered as Gods. Neither were the Jews so thoughtless as not to remember that 
it was God by whose hand they had been conducted out of Egypt, before they 
made the calf. But when Aaron said that those were the gods by whom they 
had been liberated from Egypt, they boldly assented : signifying, doubtless, 
that they would keep in remembrance, that God Himself was their deliverer, 
while they could see Him going before them in the calf. Nor can we believe 
the heathen to have been so stupid as to conceive that God was no other than 
wood and stone. For they changed the images at pleasure, but always re- 
tained in their minds the same gods ; and there were many images for one god ; 
nor did they imagine to ihemselves gods in proportion to the multitnde of 
images : besides, they daily consecrated new images, but without supposing 
that they made new gods. Read the excuses which Augustine (in Psalm cxiii.) 
says, were alleged by the idolaters of the age in which he lived. When they 
were charged with idolatry, the vulgar replied, that they worshipped not the 
visible figure, but the Divinity that invisibly dwelt in it. But they, whose re- 
ligion was, as he expresses himself, more refined, said, that they worshipped nei- 
ther the image, nor the Spirit represented by it : but that in the corporeal figure 



122 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

and Romish pictures are due to the operation of the same prin- 
ciple — an attempt to accommodate the receding majesty of a spir- 
itual being to human sympathies, and to divest the adoration of 
an infinite object of some of its awful and mysterious veneration 
by reducing its grandeur to the feeble apprehension of human 
capacities. Fallen humanity, having originally apostatized from 
God, and lost the right as well as the power of intimate commu- 
nion with the Father of spirits, seeks to gratify its religious aspi- 
rations by tangible objects around which its sympathies can read- 
ily cling. Unable to soar to the unapproachable light in which 
Deity dwells in mysterious sanctity — it spends its devotion upon 
humbler things, to which it imparts such divine associations as 
may seem, at least, to reconcile the worship with the acknow- 
ledged supremacy of God. When we cannot rise to God, the 
religious necessities of our nature will drag him down to us. 

In the papal community the degradation of the Supreme Be- 
ing seems to have reached its lowest point of disgusting fetichism 
in the adoration of the bread and wine of the sacramental feast. 
I know of nothing in the annals of heathenism that can justly be 
compared with this stupendous climax of absurdity, impiety, 
blasphemy, and idolatry. The work of the cook, and the pro- 
duct of the vintage — bread and wine — the materials of food which 
pass through the stages of digestion and decay — are placed be- 
fore us, after having been submitted to the magical process of sa- 
cerdotal enchantment, as the eternal God, in the person of the 
incarnate Redeemer. * The eucharistic elements are not memo- 



they beheld a sign of that which they ought to worship." Calvin's Inst. lib. i. 
cap. 11, § 10. Upon this whole subject of the idolatry of the Church of Rome, 
the reader is referred to Archbishop Tenison's Discourse of Idolatry, particularly 
to chapters 10, 11, 12. That the heathens did not regard their images as gods, 
and that they worshipped them on the same principle vindicated by the papists, 
may be seen from Arnobius, Lactantius, Austin, and divers of the Fathers. A 
very interesting discussion of the nature and unlawfulness of image worship may 
be found in Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium book 2. chap. ii. rule 6, § 21, ad fin. ; 
Works, vol. xii. p. 382 seq. The vain pretexts of the papists are there so ably 
discussed that the reader is earnestly requested to peruse it. 

* The reader may be amused with the following description of the scene when 
the bread and wine are about to be destroyed and the person of the Saviour pro- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 123 

rials of Christ, nor visible symbols of his love — they are, after 
the pretended consecration of the priest, the Son of God himself. 
They are worshipped and adored, eaten and drunk, received 
into the stomach and passed into the bowels as the Creator, 
Preserver, and Saviour of mankind. The ancient Egyptians, 
in paying religious veneration to inferior animals, and to a cer- 
tain class of vegetables, regarded them as sacred, as we learn 
from Herodotus and Cicero, on account of their subservience 
to purposes of utility. They were considered as instruments of 
divine Providence— not as gods themselves — by which the inter- 
ests of husbandry were promoted, and noxious vermin were de- 
stroyed. But where, in the whole history of mankind, among 
the darkest tribes of Africa or the benighted inhabitants of the 
isles of the sea, is another instance to be found of a superstition 
so degraded, or a form of idolatry so horribly revolting, as that 
which is presented in the doctrine of the Mass? The infernal 
incantation of the witches in Macbeth, chanting their awful 
dirges over the boiling caldron in which are mingled the elements 
of death, are to my mind less insupportably disgusting, less ter- 
rifically wicked, than the priests of Rome, pretending to subject 

duced. It is taken from Bishop England's preface to his translation of the Ro- 
man Missal, p. 78. 

" We are now arrived at that part which is the most solemn, important, and 
interesting of the entire ; every thing hitherto had reference, remotely or proxi- 
mately, to the awful moment which approaches. For now the true victim is 
about to be produced. In a well regulated Cathedral this indeed is a moment 
of splendid, improving, and edifying exhibition to the well instructed Christian. 
The joyful hosannas of the Organ havi died away in deep and solemn notes 
which seem to be gradually lost as they ascend to the throne of God, and sol- 
emn silence pervades the Church ; the celebrant stands bareheaded, about to 
perform the most awful duty in which a man could possibly be engaged. — His 
assistants, in profound expectation, await the performance of that duty ; taper- 
bearers line the sides of the Sanctuary, and with their lighted lamps await the 
arrival of their Lord. Incense -bearers kneel, ready to envelope the altar in a 
cloud of perfumes which represents the prayers of the Saints ; and at the mo- 
ment of the consecration, when the celebrant elevates the host, and the tinkling 
of a small bell gives notice of the arrival of the Lamb, every knee is bent, every 
head is bowed, gratulating music bursts upon the ear, and the lights which sur- 
round the throne of Him who comes to save a world, are seen dimly blazing 
through the clouds of perfumed smoke, which envelopes this mystic place. " 



124 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the Saviour of the world, in cold-blood cruelty, and for purposes 
of hire, and that in increasing millions of instances, to the unut- 
terable agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary. 

In tracing the origin of transubstantiation and the consequent 
absurdity of the Mass, we are struck with another coincidence 
between the practices and doctrines of Rome and the rites and 
customs of pagan antiquity. That the terms and phrases and 
peculiar ceremonies which were applied to the mysteries of the 
heathen superstition, have been transferred to the institutions of 
the Christian system, and have vitiated and corrupted the sa- 
craments of the gospel, is now generally admitted.* It is in the 

* The following extract from Casaubon's 16th Exercitation on the Annals 
of Baronius, will sustain the assertion of the text : 

" Pii patres, quum intelligerent, quo facilius ad veritatis amorem corruptas 
superstitione mentes traducerent ; et verba sacrorum illorum quamplurima, in 
suos usus transtulerunt ; et cum doctrinae verse capita aliquot sic tractarunt, turn 
ritus etiam nonnullos ejusmodi instituerunt ; ut videantur cum Paulo dicere gen- 
tibusvoluisse, a ayvovvrsg £V(j£f3eiT£, ravra KarayyeXofxev vjxiv. Hinc igitur est, quod 
sacramenta patres appellarunt mysteria, [xviiaeig, re^srag, rcXcfwo-as, eTco-rcreiag^ sive 
eTToxpsias, Te\ecTY]pia ; interdum etiam, opyia, sed rarius ; peculiariter vero eucha- 
ristiam tsastuv rehernv. Dicitur etiam antonomastice to ixvarnpiov aut numero 
multitudinis ra fxvarrjpia. Apud patres passim de sacra communione leges 
(ppiKTa fj.wTripia vel to evzopp^Tov [Avarrjpiov : Gregorio Magno, f magnum et pa- 
vendum mysterium.' "MveicOai in veterum monumentis saepae leges pro coenae 
dominicae fieri particeps : fivrjo-iv pro ipsa actione; fj.varrjg est sacerdos, qui etiam 
dicitur o pvaraycoyuv et o uporsXearT^g. In liturgiis graBcis et alibi etiam rj upa 
TE^err] et r? xpv(j)ia Kai errKpofiog TeXsnj et eucharistia. Quemadmodum autem 
gradus quidem in mysteriis paganicis servati sunt, sic Dionysius universam rwi/ 
reXerwi/ rrjv upovyiav traditionem sacramentorum distinguit in tres actiones, quae 
et ritibus et temporibus erant divisse ; prima est purgatio ; altera initiatio ; ter- 
tia consummatio. Spem meliorem morientibus attulisse mysteria Attica dicebat 
paulo ante M. Tullius. Patres, contra, certam salutem et vitam aeternam Christi 
mysteria digne percipientibus affere, conflrmabant ; qui ilia contemnerent, ser- 
vari non posse ; finem vero et fructum ultimum sacramentorum, deificationem, 
dicere non dubitant, quum scirent vanarum superstitionem auctores, suis epoptes 
sum honorem audere spondere. Passim igitur legas apud patres, rrjg upag fjvara- 
yaiyiag re\og etvai deiwaiv, finem sacramentorum esse, ut qui vera fide ilia per- 
ciperent, in futura vita dii evadant. Athanasius verbo, QeoirouiaQai in earn rem 
est usus ; quod mox ab eodem explicatur, participations spiritus conjungimur 
deitate. De symbolis sacramentorum per quae divinae illae ceremoniae celebran- 
tur, nihil attinet hoc loco dicere ; illud vero quod est et appellatum fidei sym- 
bolum, diversi est generis et fidelibus tesserae usum praestat per quam se mutuo 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 125 

teachings of heathen priests, in secret orgies of gross impiety, 
and flagrant indecency — and not in the instructions of Christ and 

agnoscunt, qui pietati sacramento dixerunt ; cuius modi tesseras fuisse etiam in 
paganorum mysteriis ostendimus. Formulae illi in mysteries peragendis usur- 
patae, procul este profani, respondet in liturgia haec per diaconos pronuntiari 
solita ; omnes catechumeni, foras discedete, omnes possessi, omnes non initiati. 
Noctu ritus multi in mysteriis peregebantur ; noctu etiam initiatio Christian- 
orum inchoabatur ; Guadentio nominatur splendidissima nox vigiliarum. Quod 
autem dicebamus de silentio in sacris opertaneis servari a paginis solito, id in- 
stitutum veteres Christiani sic probarunt, ut religiosa ejus observatione mystas 
omnes longe superarint. Quemadmodum igitur dicit Seneca, sanctiora sacro- 
rum solis, initiatis fuisse nota, et Jamblichus de philosophia Pythagoreorum in 
to. cnzoppr)Ta) quae efferi non poterant, et ra eKcpopa, quae foras effere jus erat ; ita 
nniversam doctrinam Christianam veteres, distinguebant in ra etccpopa, id est, ea 
quae enuntiari apud omnes poterant, et ra a-rropprjra arcana temere non vulganda : 
inquit Basilius, dogmata silentio premuntur, pr&conia publicantur . Chrysos- 
tomus de iis qui baptizantur pro mortuis : cupio quidem perspicue rem dicer e ; 
sed propter non initiatos non audeo ; hi interpretationemreddunt difficiliorem ; 
dum nos cogunt, aut perspicue non dicere, aut arcano, quoz taceri debent, apud 
ipsos efferre. Atque ut e^opxeiaQai ra fxvarrjpia dixerunt pagani, de r's qui ar- 
cana mysteriorum evulgabant ; ita dixit Dionysius, vide ne enunties aut parum 
r ever enter habeas sancta sanctorum. Passsim apud Angustinum leges, sacra- 
mentum quod noruntfideles. In Johannem tract, xi. autem sic : Omnes cate- 
chumeni jam credunt in nomine Christi. Sed Jesus non es credit iis. Mox, 
Interrogemus catechumenwm, Manducas carnem filii hominis ? nescit quid dic- 
imus. Iterum, Nescit catechumeni quid accipiant Christiani ; erubescant ergo 
quia nesciuntr 

The pious fathers, perceiving that they could the more easily draw over to 
the love of the truth minds corrupted by superstition, both transferred to their 
own use a great many of the terms employed in their sacred rites, and so treat- 
ed certain articles of true doctrine, and instituted such rites, that they seem to 
have been willing, with Paul, to say to the Gentiles : " What ye ignorantly wor- 
ship, that we declare unto you." Hence it is, that the Fathers called the Sacra- 
ments mysteries, sometimes even orgies, though more rarely, but peculiarly the 
eucharist, the festival of festivals. In the Fathers, you will every where read 
such terms as these, applied to the sacred communion : The awful mysteries, 
the ineffable mystery ; in Gregory the Great, the great and dreadful mystery. 
In the language of the ancient documents, to be initiated into the mysteries, is 
to be a partaker of the Lord's supper. The act itself was called initiation, 
and the officiating priest was termed a mystagogue. In the Greek Liturgies, 
as also elsewhere, the Eucharist is called the holy festival, the secret and dread- 
ful festival. As there were degrees in the Pagan mysteries, so Dionysius dis- 
tinguishes the whole administration of sacraments into three actions, which 
were separate in rites and times: — 1. Purgation; 2. Initiation; 3. Consum- 



126 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

his Apostles, that we are to look for the mysteries which, in the 
papal sect, envelop the seals of the Christian covenant. As the 



mation. Tully said that the Attic mysteries brought a better hope to the dying. 
The Fathers, on the other hand, confidently affirmed that the mysteries of 
Christ brought certain salvation and eternal life to those who worthily appre- 
hended them — that those who despised them could not be saved — yea, they did 
not hesitate to assert, that the end and ultimate fruit of the sacraments was dei- 
fication, since they knew that the authors of vain superstition promised this 
honor to those admitted to their secret rites. You may constantly read among 
the Fathers, that the end of the sacraments is, that those who apprehend them 
with a true faith, may go into the future life as gods. Athanasius uses the 
word to be deified, in reference to this matter, and explains it to mean, that we 
are united to God by the participation of His Spirit. Of the symbols of the 
sacraments by which those divine ceremonies were celebrated, it is not our pur- 
pose to speak here. That which was called the symbol of faith, was of different 
kinds, and served as a token by which the faithful could mutually recognize 
each other. Tokens of this kind, we have shown, were used in the pagan 
mysteries. To that formula of the pagans in celebrating their mysteries — 
stand aloof, ye profane — corresponded in the liturgy these words usually pro- 
nounced by the deacons, — " All catechumens, all possessed, all uninitiated, retire 
out of doors." Many of the heathen rites were performed.at night ; the initia- 
tion of Christians was also begun at night. It is cailed by Gaudentius the 
most splendid night of vigils. The silence observed by the pagans in their 
secret ceremonies, was so approved by the Christians, that in their religious ob- 
servation of it they far excelled the heathen priests. As Seneca says tharthe 
most holy of the sacred things were known to the initiated alone, and Jambli- 
chus divides the Pythagorean philosophy into the secret, which could not be 
uttered, and the public, which could be proclaimed, so the ancients distinguish 
the whole Christian doctrine, into the public, or that which might be announced 
to all, and the secret, which could not be promulged. Basil says, doctrines are 
pressed in silence, things that may be preached are published. Chrysostom says, 
speaking of those who are baptized for the dead, " I desire, indeed, to speak 
plainly, but on account of the uninitiated I dare not : these render the interpre- 
tation more difficult — -since they compel us either not to speak perspicuously, or 
to reveal secrets which ought to be kept hid." As those among the pagans who 
published their secrets were said to mock the mysteries, so Dionysius says — 
" See that ye neither renounce nor lightly esteem these holy of holies." Au- 
gustin constantly speaks of the sacrament which " the faithful knew." In tract 
xi. on John, he says — " All catechumens now believe in the name of Christ, but 
Jesus does not trust himself to men." Again, — " Let us ask a catechumen, dost 
thou eat the flesh of the Son of Man ? he knows not what we say." Again, — 
" Catechumens know not what Christians receive — let them blush at their igno- 
rance." 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 127 

progress of corruption is always downwards, what was begun in 
mystery ended in absurdity — the extravagant terms in which the 
fathers described the Sacrament of the supper in evident rivalry 
of the Eleusinian mysteries — the unnatural awe with which they 
invested a simple institution, led in after times to this form of 
idolatry, which transcended the follies of their pagan guides. 

But in no part of the papal system is the spirit of Heathen- 
ism more completely carried out than in the respect and venera- 
tion which are paid to the persons and relics of the saints. ' The 
deification of distinguished benefactors was perhaps the last form 
in which ancient idolatry corrupted the objects of worship. The 
canonizations of Rome differ but little in their spirit and ten- 
dency from the apotheoses of antiquity. The records of martyr- 
dom have been explored, fabulous legends promoted into history, 
for the purpose of exalting to the rank and dignity of intercessors 
with the Father a host of obscure and worthless individuals, some 
of whom were the creatures of fiction, others rank and disgusting 
impostors, and a multitude still a disgrace to humanity. The 
eloquent declamation of the Fathers on the glory which attached 
to a crown of martyrdom — the distinguished rewards which, in a 
future state, -they confidently promised to those who should shed 
their blood for religion, combined with the assurance of correspond- 
ing honors and a lasting reputation upon earth, were suited to 
encourage imposture and frauds, leading some to seek in the 
fires of persecution a full expiation for past iniquities, and hun- 
dreds more, when the storm had abated, to magnify sufferings 
which had only stopped short of death. It was perfectly natural 
that the primitive church should concede unwonted tokens of 
gratitude to the memories of martyred champions and the persons 
of living confessors. Nor are we to be astonished that their 
names should be commemorated with the pomp and solemnity of 
public festivals, among those who had witnessed the signal effects 
of such imposing institutions upon the zeal and energy of their 
pagan countrymen. What at first was extravagant admiration, 
finally settled into feelings of devotion — these sacred heroes be- 
came invested with supernatural perfections — from mortal men, 
they imperceptibly grew, in the sentiments of the multitude, to 
the awful dignity of demigods and saviours — and finally received 



12S ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

that religious homage which was due exclusively to the King 
Eternal. The system of Rome as it stands to-day, having con- 
firmed the growing superstition of ages, is as completely a system 
of polytheism as that of ancient Egypt or Greece. The Virgin 
Mary is as truly regarded as divine, as her famous prototype Cy- 
bele or Ceres — and the whole rabble of Saints are as truly adored 
in the churches of Rome as the elegant gods of Olympus were 
worshipped in the temples of Greece. To say that the homage 
accorded to these subordinate divinities is inferior in kind 
and different in principle, is a feeble and worthless evasion. 
Magnificent temples are created to their memories, in which 
their worship is " adorned with the accustomed pomp of libations 
and festivals, altars and sacrifices," in the solemn oblation of the 
Mass, which, according to the papal creed, is the most awful mys- 
tery of religion, and the highest act of supreme adoration, the 
honor of the saints is as conspicuous a part of the service as 
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.* Their relics are conceived 
to be invested with supernatural power, their bones or nails, the 
remnants of their dress, or the accidental appendages of their 
person are beheld with awful veneration or sought with incredi- 
ble avidity, being regarded as possessed of a charm like " the eye 
of newt and the toe of frog," which no machinations can resist, 
no evil successfully assail. As the name of God sanctifies the 
altars consecrated to his worship, so the names of these saints sanc- 
tify the altars devoted to their memories, and vast distinctions are 
made in the price and value of the sacrifice, according to the spot 
on which the same priest offers precisely the very same victim. In 

* The following prayer occurs in the Ordinary of the Mass : " Receive, O 
Holy Trinity, this oblation which we make to Thee in memory of the Passion, 
Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of the 
blessed Mary, ever a Virgin, of blessed John Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter 
and Paul, and of all the saints ; that it may be available to their honor and our 
salvation : and may they vouchsafe to intercede for us in heaven, whose me- 
mory we celebrate on earth. Through the same Christ our Lord." — England : s 
Translation of the Rojn. Miss. p. 281. Here Christ, the eternal Son of God, 
is distinctly said to be offered up in honor of all the saints. What can that 
man withhold from them who gives them his Saviour ? His heart surely is a 
small boon compared with this august oblation. And yet Trent has the auda- 
city to declare that they are not worshipped with homage truly Divine. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 129 

the case of these privilged altars it is evidently the name of the 
saint which gives peculiar value to the gift, though that gift is 
declared to be none other than the Son of God himself. To 
these circumstances, which unquestionably indicate more than 
mortal respect, may be added the vast importance which the wor- 
ship and creed of Rome attach to their pretended intercession. 
They execute a priestly function at the right hand of God, which 
it is hard to distinguish from the office of the Redeemer ; in fact, 
their performances in heaven seem to be designed to stimulate 
the lazy diligence of Christ, and to remind him of the wants of 
his children, which the absorbing contemplation of his own glory 
might otherwise exclude from his thoughts. It is the saints who 
keep us fresh in the memory of God and sustain our cause 
against the careless indifference of an advocate whom Rome has 
discovered not to be sufficiently touched with the feeling of our 
infirmities, though Paul declares that he sympathizes in all points 
with his children, and ever liveth to make intercession for 
them. 

To these multiplied saints, in accordance with the true spirit 
of ancient Paganism, different departments of nature are intrust- 
ed, different portions of the Universe assigned. Some protect 
their votaries from fire, and others from the power of the storm. 
Some guard from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and 
others from the arrow that flieth at noonday. Some are gods of 
the hills, and others of the plains. Their worshippers, too, like 
the patrons of judicial astrology, have distributed among them, 
and allotted to their special providence and care, the different 
limbs and members of the human frame. It is the province of 
one to heal disorders of the throat, another cures diseases of the 
eye. One is the shield from the violence of fever, and another 
preserves from the horrors of the plague. In addition to this, 
each faithful Papist is constantly attended by a guardian angel 
and a guardian saint, to whom he may flee in all his troubles, 
whose care of his person never slumbers, whose zeal for his good 
is never fatigued. If this be not the Pagan system of tutelar 
divinities and household gods, it is hopeless to seek for resem- 
blances among objects precisely alike- — for a difference of name, 
where no other discrepancies are discernible, is sufficient to es? 



130 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

tablish a difference of things. The fatherly interest, the unceas- 
ing vigilance, the deep devotion with which these heavenly spirits 
superintend the affairs of the faithful, cannot be explained upon 
any principles which deny to them the essential attributes of God. 
The prayers which are offered at their shrines, the incense which 
is burnt before their images, the awful sanctity which invests 
their relics, the stupendous miracles which the very enunciation 
of their names is believed to have achieved, are signal proofs that 
they are regarded as really and truly divine.* The nice distinc- 
tions of worship which the Church of Rome artfully endeavors to 
draw, for the purpose of evading the dreadful imputation of idol- 
atry, are purely fictitious and imaginary. That the language in 
which alone the. Fathers of Trent recognized the Scriptures as 
authentic, is too poor to express the subtlety of these refine- 
ments, is a violent presumption against them — and that the 
Greek from which they are extracted does not justify these nice- 
ties of devotion, must be admitted by all who are capable of 
appreciating the force of words. Certain it is that no sanction 
is found in the Scriptures for the arbitrary gradations of worship 
which the Papacy is anxious to inculcate under the terms dov- 
leia (dulia), vnsQ-dovlsia (hyper-dulia), and laigsia (latria).f 

* The following may be taken as a specimen of the honor which is ascribed 
to the saints. Let the reader judge whether more importance be attached to 
the intercession of Christ, than to the prayers of his departed servants : 

" O God, who was pleased to send blessed Patrick, thy bishop and confessor, 
to preach thy glory to the Gentiles, grant that by his merits and intercession 
we may through Thy mercy be enabled to perform what Thou commandest." 
Take again the Collect for St. George's day : " O God, who, by the merits 
and prayers of blessed George, thy martyr, fillest the hearts of Thy people 
with joy, mercifully grant that the blessing we ask in his name (per eum) we 
may happily obtain by Thy grace." Festival of St. Peter's chair, at Rome, 
Collect : " Oh God ! who, by delivering to Thy blessed Apostle Peter, the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven, didst give him the power of binding and loosing, 
grant that, by his intercession, we may be freed from the bonds of our sins." 
In what is called the Secret it is said ; " May the intercession, we beseech 
Thee, O Lord, of blessed Peter, the Apostle, render the prayers and offerings 
of Thy Church acceptable to Thee, that the mysteries we celebrate in his 
honor, may obtain for us the pardon of our sins." 

t They pretend that the reverence which they pay to images is eiSco^ov'Xsta 
(service of images), but deny that it is £iSo\o)\arp£ia (worship of images). For 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 131 

Whatever forced interpretations may be put upon the language of 
the Romish Breviaries in the prayers which are addressed to the 
other saints, the worship of the Virgin is evidently in the highest 

in this manner they express themselves, when they maintain that the reverence, 
which they call dulia, may be given to statues or pictures, without injury to 
God. They consider themselves, therefore, liable to no blame, while they are 
only the servants of their idols and not worshippers of them, as though worship 
were not rather inferior to service. And yet, while they seek to shelter them- 
selves under a Greek term, they contradict themselves in the most childish 
manner. For since the Greek word Aarpevsiv signifies nothing else but to 
worship, what they say is equivalent to a confession that they adore their 
images, but without adoration. Nor can they justly object that I am trying 
to ensnare them with words : they betray their own ignorance in their endea- 
vors to raise a mist before the eyes of the simple. But, however eloquent they 
may be, they will never be able, by their rhetoric, to prove one and the same 
thing, to be two different things. Let them point out, I say, a difference, in 
fact, that they may be accounted different from ancient idolaters. For as an 
adulterer or homicide will not escape the imputation of guilt, by giving his 
crime a new and arbitrary name, so it is absurd that these persons should be 
exculpated by the subtle invention of a name, if they really differ in no respect 
from those idolaters whom they themselves are constrained to condemn. But 
their case is so far from being different from that of former idolaters, that the 
source of all the evil, is a preposterous emulation, with which they have rivalled 
them by their minds in contriving, and their hands in forming visible symbols 
of the Deity." — Calvin's Inst., lib. i cap. xi. § 11. 

The Apostles are addressed in the following hymn, as the dispensers alike 
of temporal and spiritual blessings to their earthly suppliants : 

" Vos Sseculorum Judices, 
Et vera raundi lurnina, 
Votis precamur cordium ; 
Audite voces supplicum. 
Qui templacceli clauditis 
Serasque verbo solvitis, 
Nos a reatu noxios 
Solvi jubete, qasumus. 
Prsecepta quorum protinus 
Languor salusque sentiunt 
Sanate mente languidas ; 
Augete rios virtutibus," 

O you, true lights of human kind, 
And judges of the world designed, 
To you our hearty vows we show, 
Hear your petitioners below. 
The gates of heaven by your command 
Are fastened close or open stand j 
Grant, we beseech you, then, that we 
From sinful slavery may be free. 



132 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

form of supreme adoration. She is not only invoked as being 
likely to prove a successful intercessor with the Saviour, but sol- 
emnly entreated to command her Son to answer the petitions of 
her servants.* She is exalted above all that is called God — " she 

Sickness and health your power obey ; 
This comes, and that you diive away. 
Then, from our souls, all sickness chase, 
Let healing virtues take its place. 

These extracts may be found in the Vespers or Evening Office of the 
English Papists. The Secret is from the Pocket Missal. See Bamp. Lect.for 
1807, from which I have taken them, not having the original works at hand. 

* This blasphemous language, which is justified by the services of the 
Church, was stoutly defended by Harding, in his controversy with Bishop 
Jewell: "If now," says he, "any spiritual man, such as St. Bernard was, 
deeply considering the great honor and dignity of Christ's mother, do, in excess 
of mind, spiritually sport with her, bidding her to remember that she is a mother, 
and that thereby she has a certain right to command her son, and require in a 
most sweet manner, that she use her right ; is this either impiously or impu- 
dently spoken 1 Is not he, rather, most impious and impudent that findeth 
fault therewith V 3 

The following note, which occurs in the Bampton Lecture for 1807, p. 238, 
presents an awful view of the devotions, which, in their authorized books, the 
English papists render to the Virgin : 

" In the common office for her, we have the hymn, Ave Maria Stella, which 
contains the following petitions : (Vespers, p. 131.) 

" Solve vincli reis, 
Profer lumen caecis, 
Mala nostra pelle, 
Bona cuncta posce. 
Monstra te esse matrem, 
Sumat per te preces 
Q,ui pro nobis natus 
Tulit esse tuus." 

The sinner's bonds unbind, 

Our evils drive away, 
Bring light unto the blind, 

For grace and blessings pray. 
Thyself a mother show, 

May he receive thy prayer. 
Who for the debts we owe, 

From thee would breathe our air. 

In the office of Matins in Advent, is the blessing, " Nos cum prole pia,bene- 
dicat Virgo Maria," which junction of the two names in this way must shock 
every true Christian : " May the Virgin Mary, with her pious Son, bless us." 
— Primer, p. 75. At p. 99, we have the hymn where she is called upon to 
" protect us at the hour of death," and she is called " Mother of Grace,'' 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 133 

approaches " — according to Damiani, a celebrated divine of the 
eleventh century — " she approaches the golden tribunal of divine 
majesty, not asking, but commanding, not a handmaid, but &mis- 
tress." We are taught by Albertus Magnus, that " Mary prays 
as a daughter, requests as a sister, and commands as a mother." 
Another writer informs us that "the blessed Virgin, for the sal- 
vation of her supplicants, can not only supplicate her son as other 
saints do, but also by her maternal authority command her son." 
Therefore the Church prays, ' Monstra te esse matrem ;' as if 
saying to the Virgin — supplicate for us after the manner of a 
command and with a mother's authority. To her the character- 
istic titles of God, the peculiar offices of Christ, and the distinc- 
tive work of the Holy Spirit, are clearly and unblushingly as- 
cribed in approved formularies of Papal devotion.* If this be 



" Mother of Mercy." " Mater gratiae, mater misericordiae, tu nos ab noste pro- 
tege et hora mortis suscipe." At p. 290, I find this recommendation to her: 
" O holy Mary, I recommend myself, my soul and body, to thy blessed trust and 
singular custody, and into the bosom of thy mercy, this day and daily, and at 
the hour of my death ; and I commend to thee all my hope and comfort, all my 
distresses and miseries, my life and the end thereof, that by thy most holy 
intercession and merits, all my works may be directed and disposed, according 
to thine and thy Son's will, amen." My readers will by this time be both wea- 
ried and disgusted, but I must add the prayer which immediately follows : " O 
Mary, Mother of God, and gracious Virgin, the true comforter of all afflicted 
persons, crying to thee ; by that great joy wherewith thou wert comforted, when 
thou didst know our Lord Jesus was gloriously risen from the dead, be a com- 
fort to my soul, and vouchsafe to help me with thine and God's only begotten 
Son, in that last day, when 1 shall rise again with body and soul, and shall 
give account of all my actions ; to the end that I may be able by thee, O pious 
Mother and Virgin, to avoid the sentence of perpetual damnation, and happily 
come to eternal joys with all the elect of God, Amen." It must be remembered, 
that it is not what might be disclaimed as obsolete canons, or mere opinions of 
the schools, (not to any fooleries of a St. Buonaventure or Cardinal Bona,) that 
I am referring the reader, but to what is the actual and daily practice of the 
Romanists in these kingdoms. I can add even the express recommendation of 
one of their bishops. How just is the satire implied in the pithy remark of 
Bishop Bull, that " such is the worship given to the blessed Virgin by many in 
the Church of Rome, that they deserve to be called Mariani rather than Chris- 
tiani." — Serm. on Luke i. 48, 49. 

* In addition to the proofs of this awful accusation furnished in the preced- 
ing note, I appeal to the Encyclical Letter of the Pope, dated August 15, 1832 : 



134 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

not idolatry, if this be not the worship of the creature more than 
the Creator, it is impossible to understand the meaning of terms. 
If there be in this case any real distinction between dovfoia 
(dulia) and Xax^ua (latria), the dovksia (dulia) is rendered to 
God, and the larqua (latria) to the Virgin. She is the fountain 
of grace, and He is the obedient servant of her will. 

There is a species of superstition extravagantly fostered by 
veneration for the images and relics of saints, which was se- 
verely condemned by the pagan philosophers of antiquity, though 
extremely common among their countrymen, and is as warmly 
encouraged by the bigoted Priesthood of Rome. It consists in 
the practical impression that there is no grand and uniform plan 
in the government of the world, founded in goodness, adjusted 
in wisdom, and accomplished by a minute and controlling provi- 
dence ; but that all the events of this sublunary state are single, 
insulated acts, arising from the humor of different beings, 
suggested, for the most part, by particular emergencies, and 
directed generally to mercenary ends. That it secured " de- 
liverance from unnecessary terrors and exemption from false 
alarms/' was one of the chief commendations of the lax philoso- 
phy of Epicurus, in which religion and superstition were, con- 
trary to the opinions of the most distinguished sages of antiquity, 
strangely and absurdly confounded. The legitimate fear of God 
was involved in the same condemnation and exposed to the same 
severity of ridicule, with the fear of omens, prodigies and por- 
tents.* To the minds of the people, who admitted a plurality of 

" We send you a letter on this most joyful day, on which we celebrate a 
solemn festival commemorative of the triumph of the most holy Virgin, who was 
taken up to heaven ; that she , whom we have found our patroness and preserver 
in all our greatest calamities, may also be propitious to us whilst writing to you, 
and guide our mind by her heavenly inspiration to such counsels as shall be 
most wholesome for the flock of Christ" In the same document, the same 
Pope ascribes to this same creature the glorious offices of Christ. He declares 
that she is his " chief confidence" " his only ground of hope." 

§ Hence Virgil says : 

" Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari." — Oeorg. 2, 490. 

Happy the man who, studying nature's laws, 
Thro' known effects can trace the secret cause — 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 135 

gods, possessed of different attributes and intent upon opposite 
designs, it was certainly impossible to communicate those en- 
larged conceptions of a harmonious scheme of Providence, car- 
ried on by the power of a superintending mind, which are only 
consistent with such views of the supremacy of one being, as the 
philosophers themselves faintly apprehended. Polytheism must 
always be the parent of imaginary terrors. The stability and 
peace of a well-ordered mind, that unshaken tranquillity which 
is neither alarmed at the night of birds, the coruscations of 
meteors nor eclipses of the moon, proceeds from a firm persua- 
sion that there is one God, who sitteth in the heavens, and whose 
counsel none can resist. 

To suppose that different portions of the universe are assigned 
to the care of different Divinities, possessed themselves of con- 
tradictory qualities, and ruling their departments by contradic- 
tory laws, is to maintain, if the happiness of men consists in 
their favor, or is at all dependent upon obedience to their will, 
that we must ever be the victims of dread — unable to escape the 
"barking waves of Scylla," without being exposed to equal dan- 
gers from Charybdis. Such are the rivalries and jealousies 
among these conflicting Deities, such the variety of their views 
and the discordance of their plans, that the patronage of one 
is always likely to secure the malediction of the rest ; and if one 
department of nature be rendered subservient to our comfort, all 
other elements are turned in fury against us. Under these cir- 
cumstances, men's lives must be passed in continual apprehen- 
sion. They view nature, not as a connected whole, conducted 
by general laws, in which all the parts have a mutual relation to 
each other, but as broken into fragments by opposing powers — 
made up of the territories of hostile princes — in which every event 

His mind possessing in a quiet state, 
Fearless of fortune and resigned to Fate ! 

Speaking of religion, Lucretius says : 

" Q.U8B caput a cceli regionibus ostendebat, 

Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans." — 1, 65. 

Mankind long the tyrant power 

Of superstition swayed, uplifting proud 
Her head to heaven, and with horrific limbs 
Brooding o'er earth, — Goode's Lucretius, 



136 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

is a declaration of war, every appearance, whether common or 
accidental, a divine prognostic. To appease the anger, and to 
secure the approbation of such formidable enemies, will lead to a 
thousand devices of servility and ignorance. Every phenomenon 
will be watched with the intensest solicitude — the meteors of 
heaven, the thunders in the air, the prodigies of earth, will all be 
pressed into the service of religion, and anxiously questioned on 
the purposes of the gods. Charms, sorcery and witchcraft, the 
multiplied forms of divination and augury, servile flattery and de- 
basing adulation, must be the abundant harvest of evils which is 
reaped from that ignorance of Divine Providence and the sta- 
bility of nature, which is involved in the acknowledgment of a 
multitude of gods. Epicurus distinctly perceived the folly of 
imaginary terrors ; but in suggesting a remedy overlooked the 
fact that the cause was not to be found, as he evidently thought, 
in the admission of Providence,* but in its virtual denial by as- 
cribing the course of the world to the distracting counsels of in- 
numerable agents. Just conceptions of Providence presuppose 
the absolute unity of the Supreme Being ; and polytheism is no 
less fatal to the interests of piety than atheism itself. 

That the Church of Rome encourages that form of supersti- 
tion which heathen philosophers had the perspicacity to con- 
demn, which heathen poets, such as Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius, 
endeavored to escape by fleeing to the opposite extreme of irre- 
ligion, and which the very constitution of our mind rebukes in 
its instinctive belief of the uniformity of nature, is too apparent 
to need much illustration. The account which Plutarch has 



{ Csetera, quae fieri in terris coeloque tuentur 
Mortales, pavidis cum pendent mentibus saepe, 
Efficiunt animos humiles formidine divum, 
Depressosque premunt ad terram ; propterea quod, 
Ignorantia causarum conferre deorum 
Cogit ad imperium res, et concedere regnura."— [6, 49. 

Whate'er in heaven 

In earth man sees mysterious, shakes his mind, 

With sacred awe o'erwhelms him, and his soul 

Bows to the dust; the cause of things concealed 

Once from his vision, instant to the god3 

All empire he transfers, all rule supreme ; 

And doubtful whence they spring, with headlong haste 

Calls them the workmanship of powers divine. — Id. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 137 

given of the religious excesses of his countrymen, may be applied 
with equal justice, but with intenser severity, to the countless 
devices of Rome. The same absurd and uncouth adorations, 
rollings in the mire, dippings in the sea — the same contortions of 
the face, and indecent postures on the earth — the same charms, 
sulphurations and ablutions, which he indignantly charges upon 
the " Greeks, inventors of barbarian ills," are carried to a still 
more extravagant extent among the" papal inventors of worse than 
barbarian enormities. The people sit in darkness and the 
valley of the shadow of death. The heavens to them' are redun- 
dant with omens, the earth is fraught with prodigies, the church 
is a magazine of charms, and the priests are potent and irresisti- 
ble wizards, who rule the course of nature and govern the des- 
tinies of men by the bones, images and fragments, real or fictitious, 
of the slumbering dead. In the Treasure of Exorcisms, the Ro- 
man Ritual, and the Flagellum Daernonum, we have minute and 
specific directions for casting Devils out of the possessed, and for 
extracting from these lying spirits a veracious testimony to the 
distinctive doctrines of the papacy.* The holy water, the pas- 
chal wax, the consecrated oil, medals, swords, bells, and roses, 
hallowed upon the Sunday called Laetare Jerusalem, are charged 
with the power of conferring temporal benedictions and averting 
spiritual calamities. The Agnus Dei is a celebrated charm in 
the annals of Romish sorcery. f It possesses the power of ex- 

* The story of the exorcising of Martha Brosser, A. D. 1599, may be found 
in the history of Thuanus, lib. cxiii. The reader will find it an admirable spe- 
cimen of the black art. 

t Urban V. sent three Agnos Dei to the Greek Emperor, with these verses : 

" Balsam, pure wax and chrism-liquor clear 

Make up this precious lamb I send thee here. 

All lightening it dispels and each ill sprite ; 

Remedies sin and makes the heart contrite ; 

Even as the blood that Christ for us did shed. 

It helps the child-bed's pains and gives good speed 

Unto the birth. Great gifts it still doth win 

To all that wear it and that worthy bin. 

It quells the rage of fire, and cleanly bore, 

It brings from shipwreck safely to the shore." 

The forms for blessing holy water and the other implements of papal magic 

and blasphemy, may be found in the Book of Holy Ceremonies. I had marked 

out some of the prayers to be copied, but I have already furnished sufficient 

materials to establish the position of the text. 

7# 



138 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

pelling demons, securing the remission of venial sins, of healing 
diseases of the body and promoting the health of the soul. Holy 
water has also achieved stupendous wonders — broken limbs have 
been restored by its efficacy, and insanity itself has yielded to its 
power.* Whole flocks and herds are not unfrequently brought 
to the Priest to receive his blesssing, and we have approved for- 
mularies for charming the cattle and putting a spell upon the 
possessions of the faithful. Rome is indeed a powerful enchant- 
ress. Even the sacraments become Circasan mixtures in her 
hands, dispensing mysterious effects to all who receive them 
from her Priestly magicians ; being indeed a substitute for vir- 
tue, a complete exemption from the necessity of grace. f 

The type of character and religious opinion, the pervading 
tone of sentiment and feeling, which any system produces on the 
mass of its votaries, is a just criterion of its real tendencies. The 
influence of a sect is not to be exclusively determined from 
abstract statements or controversial expositions, but from the 
fruits which it naturally brings forth in the hearts and lives of 
those who belong to it. The application of this test is particu- 
larly just in the case of Romanism, since the Priests possess 
unlimited control over the minds and consciences of their sub- 
jects. They are consequently responsible for the moral condi- 
tion, the religious observances, the customs and opinions of 
papal communities. Hence the system of Rome, in its practical 
operations, can be better ascertained from the spiritual state of 
the mass of the people, than from the briefs of Popes, the canons 
of Councils, and the decisions of Doctors. It is seen among the 

* See the dialogues of St. Gregory and Bede. St. Fortunatus restored a 
broken thigh with holy water ; St. Malachias brought a madman to his senses 
by the same prescription ; and St. Hilarion healed divers of the sick with holy 
bread and oil. These are only specimens, and very moderate ones, of the le- 
gends of the Saints. The magic of Rome turns the course of nature into a 
theatre of wonders. 

t " Upon the Sacraments themselves," says Bishop Taylor, " they are taught 
to rely with so little of moral and virtuous dispositions, that the efficacy of one 
is made to lessen the necessity of the other ; and the sacraments are taught to 
be so effectual by an inherent virtue, that they are not so much made the in- 
struments of virtue, as the suppletory ; not so much to increase as to make 
amends for the want of grace/' — Works, vol. x. p. 241. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 139 

people embodied in the life ; its legitimate tendencies are re- 
duced to the test of actual experience ; we know what it is by 
beholding what it does. Tried by this standard, it seems to me 
that Romanism cannot be regarded in any other light than as a 
debasing system of idolatrous superstition, in which the hopes of 
mankind are made to depend upon the charms of magic and 
the effects of sorcery, instead of the glorious principles of the 
doctrine of Christ. It is indeed a kingdom of darkness, in which 
the Prince of the power of the air sits enthroned in terror ; en- 
velopes the people in the blackness of spiritual night, and shrouds 
their minds in the grim repose of death. Where the raven 
wings of superstition and idolatry overshadow a land, the spirit 
of enterprise is uniformly broken, the energies of the soul are 
stifled and suppressed, and the noblest affections of the heart are 
chilled, blighted, and perverted by the malignant influence of 
error. The picture which Taylor draws of the papal population 
of Ireland,* which Townsend gives of the bigoted peasantry 

* I give a single specimen of the abject superstition of the Papists, upon 
the authority of Jeremy Taylor. " But we have observed amongst the gene- 
rality of the Irish, such a declension of Christianity, so great a credulity to 
believe every superstitious story, such confidence in vanity, such groundless 
pertinacity, such vicious lives, so little sense of true religion and the fear of 
God, so much care to obey the priests and so little to obey God, such intolerable 
ignorance, such fond oaths and manners of swearing, thinking themselves more 
obliged by swearing on the Mass-book than the four Gospels, and St. Patrick's 
Mass-book more than any new one ; swearing by their father's soul, by their 
gossip's hand, by other things which are the product of those many tales that 
are told them ; their not knowing upon what account they refuse to come to 
Church, but now they are old, and never did, or their countrymen do not, or 
their fathers, or grandfathers, never did, or that their ancestors were priests 
and they will not alter from their religion ; and after all they can give no 
account of their religion, what it is ; only they believe as their priests bid 
them, and go to mass, which they understand not, and reckon their beads to 
tell the number and the tale of their prayers, and abstain from eggs and flesh 
in Lent, and visit St. Patrick's well, and leave pins and ribands, yarn or thread 
in their holywells, and pray to God, St. Mary, St. Patrick, St. Columbanus,and 
St. Bridget, and desire to be buried with St. Frances' cord about them, and to 
fast on Saturdays, in honor of our lady. * * * I shall give one particular 
instance of their miserable superstition and blindness. I was lately, within 
a few months, very much troubled with petitions and earnest requests for 
restoring a bell, which a person of quality had in his hands at the time of, and 



140 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

of Spain — the condition of the church in Silesia, Italy, Portugal 
and South America, disclose the features of the papacy in their 
true light, and demonstrate, beyond the possibility of doubt, that 
it is a system of the same sort, founded in the same principles, 
and aiming at the same results with the monstrous mythology of 
the Hindoos. 

They are ennobled by none of those sublime and elevated 
views of the moral government of God, and the magnificent 
eeonomy of His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ, which 
alone can impart tranquillity to the conscience, stability to the 
character, and consistency to the life. They recognize God in 
none of the operations of His hands — Priests, saints, images and 
relics, beads, bells, oil and water so completely engross their 
attention, and contract their conceptions, that they can rise to 
nothing higher in the scale of excellence, than the empty page- 
antry of ceremonial pomp, or dream of nothing better in the way 
of felicity than the solemn farce of sacerdotal benediction. Their 
hopes are vanity and their food is dust. To the true Christian, 



ever since, the late rebellion. I could not guess at the reasons of their so great 
and violent importunity, but told the petitioners if they could prove that bell to 
be theirs, the gentleman was willing to pay the full value of it, though he had 
no obligation to do so, that I know of, but charity. But this was so far from 
satisfying them, that still the importunity increased, which made me diligently 
to inquire into the secret of it. The first cause I found, was that a dying 
person in the parish, desired to have it rung before him to church, and pretend- 
ed he could not die in peace if it were denied him ; and that the keeping 
of that bell did anciently belong to that family, from father to son : but because 
this seemed nothing but a fond and unreasonable superstition, I inquired far- 
ther, and found at last, that they believed this bell came from heaven, and that 
it used to be carried from place to place, and to end controveries by oath, 
which the worst men durst not violate if they swore upon that bell, and the 
best men amongst them durst not but believe him ; that if this bell was rung 
before the corpse to the grave, it would help him out of purgatory ; and that, 
therefore, when any one died, the friends of the deceased did, whilst the bell 
was in their possession, hire it for the behoof of their dead, and that by this 
means, that family was in part maintained. I was troubled to see under what 
spirit of delusion these poor souls do lie, how infinitely their credulity is abused, 
how certainly they believe in trifles and perfectly rely on vanity, and how little 
they regard the truths of God, and rjpw not at all they drink of the waters of 
salvation."-^ Works, vol. x. p. 121, seg. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 141 

they present a scene as melancholy and moving, as that which 
stirred the spirit of the Apostle when he beheld the citizens of 
Athens wholly given to idolatry; in the possession of the strong 
man armed, it requires something mightier than argument, 
stronger than the light of truth, to break the spell of spiritual 
enchantment which leads the-m on to death, to dissipate the deep 
delusions of priestly imposture which are sealing their souls for 
hell. The mind recoils at the thought of the terrible account 
which their blind guides who have acted the part of mad diviners, 
must render in the day of final retribution, when the blood of 
countless souls shall be required at their hands. The Priests of 
other superstitions may plead, to some extent, irremediable igno- 
rance for their errors, idolatries and crimes; the way of right- 
eousness had never been revealed to them, but the Priests of 
Rome have no cloak for their wickedness ; they have deliberately 
extinguished the light of revelation — have sinned wilfully after 
they had received the knowledge of the truth — have insulted the 
Saviour and despised the Spirit ; betrayed the one, like Judas, 
with a kiss, and reduced the other to a mere magician, and must 
consequentlv expect the severity of judgment at the hands of the 
Almighty Disposer of events. 

The pagan tendencies of Rome appear, in the last place, 
from her substitution of a vain and imposing ritual, copied from 
the models of her heathen ancestors, for the pure and spiritual 
worship of the Gospel. The Saviour has told us that God re- 
quires the homage of the heart, and that all our services, in 
order to be accepted by Him with whom we have to do, must be 
rendered in the name of the Son, by the grace of the Spirit, and 
according to the requirements of the written word. To worship 
God in spirit and truth, is to bring to the employment that know- 
ledge of His name, that profound veneration for His character, 
that cordial sympathy with the moral perfections of His nature, 
which presuppose an intimate acquaintance with the economy 
of His grace through Jesus Christ ; the renovation of the heart 
by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost, and a constant 
spirit of compliance with all his statutes and ordinances. It is 
indeed the spirit of love ^and of obedience, and both necessarily 
suppose that knowledge which is identified with faith, and pro- 



142 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

ceeds from the disclosures of the written word. Whatever is 
not required is not obedience, and therefore cannot be worship, 
which must always be measured by the will of God. Upon com- 
paring the worship which Rome prescribes, with that which the 
Gospel requires, they will be found to differ in every essential 
element of acceptable homage. The Gospel confines our wor- 
ship exclusively to God — Rome scatters it upon a thousand ob- 
jects whom she has exalted to the rank of Divinities. The Gos- 
pel directs that all our services should be offered exclusively in 
the name of Christ — Rome has as many intercessors as gods, 
and as many mediators as Priests. The Gospel requires the 
affections of the heart, purified and prompted by the Holy Ghost 
— Rome prescribes beads and genuflexions, scourging and pil- 
grimages, fasts and penances, and particularly the magic of what 
she calls sacraments, which are an excellent substitute for grace. 
The object which the Gospel proposes is to restore the sinner to 
communion with God, to make him, indeed, a spiritual man, 
and hence the appeals which it makes to the assistance of the 
senses are few and simple — the object of Rome is to awaken 
emotions of mysterious awe, which shall ultimately redound to 
the advantage of the priesthood ; and hence her services are ex- 
clusively directed to the eye, the ear, and the fancy. If she suc- 
ceeds in reaching the imagination, and produces a due venera- 
tion for the gorgeous solemnities which pass before us, she has 
compassed her design, and excited the only species of religious 
emotion with which she is acquainted. The difference between 
spiritual affections and sentimental impressions, which is indeed 
the difference between faith and sense, is utterly unknown to 
the blinded Priesthood of the papal apostacy. Imposing festi- 
vals, and magnificent processions, symbols and ceremonies, liba- 
tions and sacrifices — these proclaim the poverty of her spirit, the 
vanity of her mind: they are sad memorials of "religion lying 
in state, surrounded with the silent pomp of death. " 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 143 

LETTER IX. 

Papal Infallibility proved to be unfriendly to civil government. 

The extravagant pretensions of the Romish sect to the 
Divine prerogative of infallibility, are not only fatal to the inter- 
ests of truth, morality and religion, but equally destructive of the 
rights of magistrates, and the ends for which governments were 
instituted. To define the connexion which ought to subsist 
between church and state, to prescribe their mutual relations 
and subserviencies, and mark their points of separation and con- 
tact, are problems of polity which have tasked the resources of 
the mightiest minds, and which their highest powers have been 
inadequate to solve. The difficulties, however, have not arisen 
from the inherent nature of the subject, but from the force of 
ancient institutions and early prejudices to blind and enslave the 
understanding. The masterly abilities of Warburton were cer- 
tainly competent to the discussion of this or any other subject ; 
the zeal of eloquence and power of argument with which he has 
presented the importance of religion as conducing to the success 
and stability of the state, are, perhaps, irresistible ; yet the atten- 
tive reader will perceive that none of his reasonings, however 
unanswerably they prove the value of the church and the need of 
its aid, establish the necessity of a federal alliance. The gratui- 
tous assumption which vitiates the logic of this celebrated book, 
is the ancient opinion that Christianity could not contribute its 
influence to the peace and order of society, without being sup- 
ported, by the state. " The props and buttresses of secular 
authority " were conceived to be essential not only to the pros- 
perity but also to the being of the church ; as if, in the language 
of Milton, " the church were a vine in this respect, that she can- 
not subsist without clasping about the elm of worldly strength 
and felicity." It is found from experience, however, and might 
be deduced from the nature of its principles, that Christianity is 
then most powerful, and sustains the government by its strongest 
sanctions, when it stands alone, commending itself to every man's 
conscience, by truth and purity. Alliance with the state cor- 



144 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

rupts and weakens spiritual authority — it debases the church 
into a secular institution, makes emolument and splendor more 
important objects than righteousness and truth, — defeats the ends 
for which it has been instituted — and, instead of adding weight to 
the laws of man, it detracts from the authority of the laws of 
God. Church and state, distinct as they are in their offices and 
ends, clothed with powers of a different species, and supported 
by sanctions essentially unlike, fulfil their respective courses with 
less confusion and disturbance, when each is restrained within 
its own appropriate jurisdiction. The harmony of the spheres is 
preserved by the regularity and order with which they revolve in 
their appointed orbits. The protection of life, property and 
person, is the leading end for which governments were instituted 
— the restoration of man to the image of God, through faith in 
the scheme of supernatural revelation, is the grand purpose for 
which the church was established. The state views man as a 
member of society, and deals exclusively with external acts — the 
church regards him as the creature of God, and demands integrity 
in the inward parts. The state secures the interests of time — 
the church provides for a blessed immortality ; the state is con- 
cerned about the bodies of men — the church is solicitous for the 
deathless soul. Racks, gibbets, dungeons and tortures are the 
props and muniments of secular authority — truth and love, " the 
sword of the Spirit," and " the cords of a man," are the mighty 
weapons of the spiritual host. 

To maintain, with a recent writer, whose work is far inferior 
in compactness and precision to the treatise of Warburton, that 
one of the distinctive ends of government is to propagate the 
truths of religion, is to destroy the church as a separate institu- 
tion, and make it an appendage to the state. The administra- 
tion of religion under this view, becomes as completely a part 
of the government, as courts of justice or halls of legislation. In 
support of this extravagant Erastianism, it is gravely maintained 
that the state is really and truly a person — the proper subject of 
moral obligation, and, therefore, bound like every other person, 
to profess a religion. The legitimate consequence would seem 
to be, if the state, as such, is capable of exercising religious af- 
fections, that it must also experience, in a future life, the rewards 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 145 

of obedience, or the punishment of sin. Those who have been 
accustomed to regard religion as a matter of personal faith and 
obedience, appealing to the consciences of private individuals, 
and not to the authority of krngs and rulers, are slow to com- 
prehend the spiritual birth of nations, the salvation of organized 
communities, or their eternal perdition for impenitent hardness 
of heart. 

The doctrine of Rome, on the mutual relations of the tempo- 
ral and spiritual power, leads to consequences as fatal to the 
liberty of states, as those of Warburton or Gladstone in the in- 
dependence, purity, and efficiency of the church. Three diffe- 
rent views have been taken of this subject by distinguished 
writers in the papal communion. The Canonists* and Jesuits! 

* For an amusing effort to effort to evade the claims of the Canon law, 
vide Gibert,vol. ii. pp. 511. 12. 

t The doctrine seems to be embodied in the Jesuit's oath, which the 
learned Archbishop Usher drew from undoubted records in Paris and published 
to the world. In that oath it is asserted that the Pope, by virtue of the keys 
given to his holiness by Jesus Christ, hath power to depose heretical kings, 
princes, states, commonwealths and governments, all being illegal, without his 
sacred confirmation ; and consequently all allegiance is renounced to any 
such rulers. The entire document is as follows : 

I, A. B., now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed Virgin Mary, 
the blessed Michael the Archangel, the blessed St. John Baptist, the holy apos- 
tles St. Peter and St. Paul, and the saints and sacred host of heaven, and to 
you my ghostly father, do declare from my heart, without mental reservation, 
that his holiness pope Urban, is Christ's vicar-general, and is the true and only 
head of the Catholic or universal church throughout the earth ; and that by 
the virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given to his holiness by my Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, com- 
monwealths, and governments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation, 
and that they may be safely destroyed ; therefore, to the utmost of my power, I 
shall and will defend this doctrine and his holiness' rights and customs against, 
all usurpers of the heretical authority whatsoever, especially against the now 
pretended authority and church of England, and all adherents, in regard that 
they and she be usurpal and heretical, opposing the sacred mother church of 
Rome. I do renounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, 
prince, or state, named Protestant ; or obedience to any of their inferior magis- 
trates or officers. I do further declare, that the doctrines of the church of Eng- 
land, of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and of others of the name of Protestants, to 
be damnable, and they themselves are damned, and to be damned, that will 
not forsake the same. I do further declare, that I will help, assist, and advise, 
all, or any of his holiness' agents, in any place wherever I shall be, in England, 



146 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

for the most part, carrying out the idea that the Pope is the 
Vicar of God upon earth, clpthe him with all the plenitude of 
power, in relation to sublunary things, which belongs to Deity 
Himself. It is his prerogative to fix the boundaries of nations, to 
appoint the habitations of the people, and to set over them the 
basest of men. From Him kings derive their authority to reign, and 
princes to decree justice — upon him the rulers and judges of the 
earth are dependent alike for the sceptre and the sword — it is his, 
like Jupiter, in Homer, "to shake his ambrosial curls and give 
the nod — the stamp of fate, the sanction of a God." In the 
sentence against Frederick II., passed in the council of Lyons, 
which, according to Bellarmin, represented, without doubt, the 
universal church, this extravagant pretension to absolute "power is 
assumed.* At the close of the second session of the fifth coun- 

Scotland, and in Ireland, or in any other territory or kingdom I shall come 
to ; and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestants' doctrine, and to 
destroy all their pretended powers regal or otherwise. I do further promise 
and declare, that notwithstanding I am dispensed to assume any religion heret- 
ical for the propagating of the mother church's interest, to keep secret and priv- 
ate all her agents' counsels from time to time, as they intrust me, and not to 
divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing, or circumstance, whatsoever ; but 
to execute all that shall be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me, by 
you my ghostly father, or by any of this sacred convent. All which, I, A. B., 
do swear by the blessed Trinity, and blessed sacrament which I now am to 
receive, to perform and on my part to keep inviolably : and do call all the 
heavenly and glorious host of heaven to witness these my real intentions, to 
keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, I take this most holy and blessed 
sacrament of the eucharist : and witness the same further with my hand and 

seal in the face of this holy convent, this day of , An. Dom., &c." 

* " Nos itaque super preemissis et compluribus aliis ejus nefandis excessibus, 
cum fratribus nostris, et sacro concilio deliberatione prsehabita diligenti, cum 
Jesu Christi vices licet immeriti teneamus in terris, nobisque in beati Petri 
apostoli persona sit dictum : < Quodcumque ligaveris super terram &c.' Me- 
moratum principem, qui se imperio et regnis omnique honore ac dignitate 
reddidat tarn indignum, quique propter suas iniquitates a Deo ne regnet vel im- 
peret est abjectus, suis ligatum peccatis, et abjectum, omnique honore et dignitate 
privatum a Domino ostendimus, denunciamus, ac nihilo minus sententiando 
privamus ; omnes, qui ei juramento fidelitatis tenentur adstricti, a juramento 
hujusmodi perpetuo absolventes ; autoritate apostolica firmiter inhibendo, ne 
quisquam de caetero sibi tamquam imperatori vel regi pareat vel intendat, et 
decerxiendo quoslibet, qui deinceps ei velut imperatori aut regi consilium vel 
auxilium pra3stitirent seu favorem, ipso facto excommunicationis vinculo subja- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. Hi. 

cil of Lateran, an oration was delivered by Cajetan, which 
abounds in fulsome adulation of the Pope, representing him as 
the Vicar of the Omnipotent God, invested alike with temporal 
power and ecclesiastical authority, and exhorting him, in blas- 
phemous application of the language of the Psalmist, to " gird 
his sword upon his thigh and proceed lo reign over all the 
powers of the earth.* 

cere. Illi autum ad quos in eodem imperio imperatoris spectat electio, eligant 
libere successorem. De praefato viro Sicilian regno provide re curabimus, cum 
eorundum fratrum nostrorum consilio, sicut viderimus expedire." — Labb. Concil. 
t. xi. p. 645. 

We, therefore, on account of the aforesaid and numerous other abominable 
excesses of this man, do, with our brethren, and the sacred council, after diligent 
deliberation (seeing we, though undeserving, hold the place of Jesus Christ 
on earth, and that it was said to us in the person of the blessed apostle Peter, 
" Whosoever thou shalt bind on earth, &c"), declare the said Prince, who has 
proved himself so unworthy of all rule, power, and dignity, to be bound under 
his sins and an outcast, and deprived by the Lord of all honor and dignity ; 
and all who are bound to him by oaths of fealty, we forever absolve from such 
oaths ; and, by our apostolical authority, we strictly forbid any from obeying 
him as emperor or king ; and all such as shall thus obey him, or show him any 
aid or favor, are rendered, by that act, excommunicate ; — and they to whom 
the election of Emperor pertaineth, are hereby authorized freely to choose a 
successor, &c. 

* " Assequitur autem hoc, te volente, teque imperante, si tu ipse, pater 
sancte omnipotentis Dei cujus vices in terris non solum honore dignitatis, sed 
etiam studio voluntatis gerere debes : si ipsius Dei potentiam,perfectionem sap- 
ientiamque imitaberis. Atquiut in primis potentiam imiteris, accingere, pater 
sancte, gladio tuo, tuo inquam accingere : binos enim habes unum tibi reliquis 
que hujus mundi principibus communem : alterum tibi proprium, atque ita 
tuum, ut ilium alius nemo nisi a te habere possit. Hoc itaque gladio tuo, qui 
ecclesiastical potestatis est, accingere potentissime, et accingere super femur tuum, 
id est, super universas humani generis potestatis." — Labb. Concil, 1. 14, p. 75. 

This the church shall obtain by thy will and command, if thou thyself, holy 
father, wouldst imitate the power, perfection and wisdom of the omnipotent 
God, whose part on earth you are bound to perform, not only in dignity and 
honor, but also in zealous will. But in order that thou mayst imitate his power, 
in the first place, gird, O holy father, gird, I say, thy sword upon thy thigh ; for 
two swords thou hast, one common to thee with the other princes of this world ; 
the other proper and peculiar to thyself, and so specially thine, that no other 
can have it but from thee. This, therefore, which is the sword of ecclesiastical 
power, gird, O thou most mighty, upon thy thigh, that is, upon all the poten- 
tates of the human race. 



148 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

The Pontiffs, in their damnatory sentences, are particularly 
fond of quoting the words of Jeremiah, in accommodation to them- 
selves — " I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms," 
as well as the words of Christ to Peter, in the largest and most 
absolute sense. To be the Vicar of the Omnipotent God, is to 
be Lord of Lords, and King of Kings. In the famous contro- 
versy betwixt Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair, the insolent 
Pontiff boldly asserted that " The King of France, with all other 
Kings and Princes whatsoever, were obliged, by a Divine com- 
mand, to submit to the authority of the Popes, as well in all po- 
litical and civil matters, as in those of a religious nature." These 
doctrines are fully brought out in the memorable Bull, " Unam 
Sanctam," in which it is maintained that " Jesus had granted a 
two-fold power to the Church, or in other words the spiritual and 
temporal sword, and subjected the whole human race to the au- 
thority of the Roman Pontiff," whom they were bound to obey 
on pain of eternal damnation. * 

There is another view, which has been approved by the church 
in every possible way, by the voice of her Doctors, the Bulls of 
Popes, and the decrees of Councils, which reaches the same 
practical results on grounds less flagrantly wicked, or detestably 
blasphemous. It is the opinion maintained by Baronius, Bel- 
larmin, Binius, Carranza, Perron, Turrecrema and Pighius, and 
abounding ad nauseam in the documents of Gregory VII. The 
Pope, according to these writers, is not absolute lord of the in- 
fidel world. His special jurisdiction is the guardianship and care 
of the church. In protecting his flock, however, from the en- 
croachments of error and the dangers of schism, he is clothed 
with plenary power to disturb the government of nations, and 
destroy the institutions of states. He has a broad commission 
from Heaven to provide for the welfare and prosperity of the 
church, and whatever powers may be found subservient to the 
fulfilment of this delegated trust, are indirectly vested in his 

* Gibert Corpus Juris Canonici, vol. 2, p. 513, sums up the famous bull of 
Boniface VIII., de majoritate et obedientia, in these pregnant words : " Definit 
terrenam potestatem spirituali ita subdi, ut ilia possit ab ista institui et destitui." 

It determines that earthly dominion is to be so subject to spiritual, that the 
former can be set up and pulled down by the latter. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 149 

hands. Like a Roman Dictator, his business is to see that the 
Republic of the faithful receives no damage ; and if kincrs and 
rulers should be regarded as dangerous€b the interests of the 
church, kings and rulers may be laid aside at his sovereign 
pleasure. If there be a single principle which can be called the 
doctrine of the Romish sect, to which its infallibility is solemnly 
pledged, and which has been exemplified in repeated acts, this is 
the principle. Thomas Aquinas distinctly teaches that the 
church can absolve believing subjects from the power and domin- 
ion of infidel kings. iEgideus maintains that the power of 
the church, which is fully embodied in the sovereign Pontiff, 
extends not only to spiritual interests, but also to temporal 
affairs. Thomas Cajetan defines the power of the Pope, almost in 
the very words with which I have described this general opinion 



# 



* " Potest tamen juste per sententiam, vel ordinationem Ecclesis, auctori- 
tatem Dei habentis, tale jus dominii, vel prselationis tolli ; quia infideles merito 
suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles, qui transferuntur in 
filios Dei ; sed hoc quidem Ecclesia quandoque facit, quandoque non facit." — 
Bellarm. Tract. De Potest, Summ. Pontif. p. 11. 

" Sed, inquit, diceret aliquis, quod Reges et Principes spiritualiter non tem- 
poraliter subsint Ecclesiee. Sedhaee dicentesvim argumenti non capiunt: nam 
si solum spiritualiter Reges et Principes subessent Ecclesiae, non esset gladius 
sub gladio : non essent temporalia sub spiritualibus ; non esset ordo in potesta- 
tibus ; non reducerentur infima in suprema per media. Heec ille, qui toto illo 
tractatu hoc probat, potestatem Ecclesiae, quae plenissima est in Summo Ponti- 
fice, non ad sola spiritualia,sed etiam ad temporalia se extendere." — Ibid. p. 13. 

" Ideo suae potestati duo conveniunt : primo, quod non est directe respectu 
temporalium : secundo, quod est respectu temporahum in ordine ad spiritualia : 
hoc enim habet ex eo, quod ad supremum finem omnia ordinari debent, etiam tem- 
poralia ab eo procul dubio, cujus interest ad ilium finem omnes dirigere, ut est 
Christi Vicarius; primum autem ex natura suae potestatis consequitur."-/6z^.p.l5. 

Such rights of dominion, however, may be taken away by the sentence 
or ordinance of the Church, having the authority of God ; because infidels, by 
reason of their unbelief, deserve to lose their authority over the faithful, who 
are transferred to the sons of God ; but as to this, the Church sometimes exe- 
cutes this, her right, and sometimes not, as she thinks fit. 

But, some one may say, that Kings and Princes are subject to the Church 
spiritually, not temporally. Those saying this do not seize the force of the ar- 
gument ; for if kings and princes were only subject to the Church spiritually, 
there would not be a sword under a sword ; temporal things would not be under 
spiritual ; there would not be an order in powers ; the lowest would not be raised 



150 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Those who wish to see a sickening list of the Popish writers 
who have maintained this notion of Pontifical power, will find 
ample satisfaction in tte treatise of Bellarmin de Potestate. Pri- 
vate writers, however, are of little value, compared with councils 
and Popes themselves. Gregory VII., in a Roman synod con- 
sisting of one hundred and ten bishops, presumed, for the honor 
and protection of the church, to depose Henry from the Govern- 
ment of Germany and Italy, and transfer his dominions to an- 
other man. This sentence, as Bellarmin triumphantly boasts, 
was afterwards confirmed by Victor, Urban, Pascal, Gelasius, 
and Calixtus, in the synods of Beneventine, Placentia, Rome, 
Colonia, and Rheims.* I need not insist upon the cases of Bon- 
iface and Philip the Fair, Paul the third and Henry VIII., Pius 
V. and the Virgin Queen. The memorable Bull in Coena 
Domini, issued by Pius V. in 1567, should not be suffered to pass 
without notice. This atrocious document prostrates the power 

to the highest, through the intermediate. (So far, this author, who, in this whole 
treatise, proves this, that the power of the Church, which is complete in the 
sovereign Pontiff, extends, not to spiritual things alone, but temporal.) 

His (the Pope's) power has not a direct respect to temporal things, but a re- 
spect to temporal in order to spiritual. For this it has from the circumstance, 
that all things ought to be ordered and disposed for one supreme end, and that 
by him unquestionably to whom it pertains to direct all things to that end, as 
he is Christ's vicar, and so the temporal power is involved in the nature of his 
spiritual power. 

* " Quapropta confidens de judicio et misericordia Dei, ejusque piissimae 
matris semper virginis Mariee, fultus vestra auctoritate, saepe nominatum Hen- 
ricum, quern regem dicunt, omnesque fautores ejus excommunicationi subjicio 
et anathematis vinculis alligo ; et iterum regnum Teutonicorum et Italiae, ex 
parte Omnipotentis Dei et vestra interdicens ei, omnem potestatem et dignita- 
tem illi regiam tollo et ut nullus Christianorum ei sicut regi obediat interdico, 
omnesque qui ei juraverunt vel jurabunt de regni dominatione, a juramenti pro- 
missione absolvi." — Labbe, vol. x. p. 384. 

Wherefore, confiding in the justice and mercy of God, and of his most holy 
mother Mary, always virgin, and supported by your authority, I lay under ex- 
communication, and bind under the chains of our anathema, the oft-named 
Henry, whom they style king, and all his adherents ; and on the part of Al- 
mighty God and you, interdicting him the rule of Germany and Italy, I deprive 
him of all power and regal dignity, and I forbid every Christian to obey him as 
king, and all who have sworn or may swear allegiance to him, I absolve from 
their oath. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 151 

of kings and magistrates at the foot of the Pope, subverts the 
independence of states and nations, and makes the sword of 
monarchs and rulers the pliant tool of Pontifical despotism.* 
Even in the nineteenth century, the successors of the fisherman 
are regaled with dreams of terrestrial grandeur, and Pius VII., 
in the plenitude of spiritual power, poured all the vials of his 
wrath upon the head of Napoleon. 

Directly or indirectly, more or less distinctly, eight general 
councils have endorsed the doctrine of the temporal jurisdiction 
of the Pope. The fourth and fifth of Lateran, those of Lyons, 
Vienna, Pisa, Constance, Basil and Trent. The third canon of 
the fourth council of Lateran, is intended to provide for the 
extirpation of heresy. It is there decreed, that if any temporal 
lord, after the admonition of the church, should neglect to purge 
his realm from heretical pravity, he shall be excommunicated by 
his metropolitan and suffragans. If he should still fail to give 
satisfaction for a year, his contumacy shall be announced to the 
Sovereign Pontiff, who shall proceed to absolve his subjects from 
their allegiance, and transfer his dominions to any usurper, wil- 
ling and able to extirminate heretics and restore the faith. "f 
" If this," says Bellarmin, " is not the voice of the Catholic 
Church — where, I pray, shall we find it?" The council of 

* For a particular account of this famous bull, the reader is particularly 
referred to Giannone 1st. di Napoli. lib. 33, cap. 4., who may there see its auda- 
cious interference with the right of kings, magistrates and rulers, fully exposed. 

t " Si vero Dominus Temporalis requisitus et monitus ab ecclesia, terram 
suam purgare neglexerit ab hac hasretica fceditate, per metropolitanum et 
cceteros comprovinciales episcopos excommunicationis vinculo innodetur. Et, 
si satisfacere contempserit infra annum, significetur hoc summo Pontifici, ut 
ex tunc esse vassalos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutes et terram exponat 
catholicis occupandam, qui earn exterminatis hsereticis sine ulla contradictione 
possideant et in fidei puritate conservent." — Labbe, vol. xi. p. 148. 

But if any temporal lord, when required and admonished by the Church, 
shall neglect to purge his land from this heretical taint, let him be bound in the 
chains of excommunication by the metropolitan and other bishops. And if he 
disdain to give satisfaction within a year, let this be signified to the sovereign 
Pontiff, that henceforth he may declare the vassals of such lord absolved from 
their allegiance, and may devote his land to be occupied by catholics, who, 
exterminating the heretics, may possess it without any contradiction, and may 
preserve it in the true faith. 



152 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Trent — that I may not occupy the reader with a tedious display of 
the insolence, arrogance and pride of Vienna, Constance, Pisa, 
and Basil — the council of Trent, in its twenty-fifth session, 
passed a statute in relation to duelling, which seems to assume 
something more definite and tangible than spiritual power. The 
temporal sovereign who permits a duel to take place in his do- 
minions, is punished not only with excommunication, but with 
the loss of the place in which the combat occurred. The duel- 
ists and their seconds are condemned in the same statute, to per- 
petual infamy, the forfeiture of their goods, and deprived, if 
they should fall, of Christian burial, while those who were 
merely spectators of the scene, are sentenced to eternal male- 
diction.* 



* " Detestabilis duellorum usus fabricante diabolo introductus, ut cruenta 
corporum morte animarum etiam perniciem lucretur ; ex Christiano orbe peni- 
tus exterminetur imperatur, reges, duces, principes, marchiones, comites, et 
quoeumque alio nomine domini temporales, qui locum ad monomachiam in 
terris suis inter Christianos concesserint, eo ipso sint excommunicati ac juris- 
dictione et dominio civitatis, castri, aut loci, in quo vel a pud quem duellum 
geri permiscerint, quod ab ecclesia obtinent, privati intelligantur ; et, si fudaiia 
sint, directis dominis statim acquirantur. Qui vero pugnam commisserint, et 
qui eorem patrini vocantur, excommunicationis, ac omnium honorum suorum 
proscriptionis, ac perpetuae infamise poenam incurrant ; et ut homicidae juxta 
sacros canones puniri debeant ; et si in ipso conflictu decesserint, perpetuo ca- 
reant ecclesiastica sepultura, illi etiam, qui, consilium in causa duelli tam in jure 
quam facto dederint, aut alia quacumque ratione ad id quemquam suasderint, nee 
non spectatores excommunicationis, ac perpetuae maledictionis vinculo tenean- 
tur non obstante quoeumque privilegio ; seu prava consuetudine etiam immemo. 
rabili." — Labbe,vo\. xiv. p. 916. 

The detestable practice of duelling, introduced by the agency of the Devil, 
in order that, by the bloody death of men's bodies, he may gain the destruction 
of their souls — let it be utterly exterminated from the Christian world. Let the 
Emperor, king, duke, marquis, count or temporal lord of whatever name, who 
shall allow single combat to Christians within his territories, be by that act ex- 
communicated, and be understood as deprived of the jurisdiction of such city, 
fort, or place where such duel has been permitted ; and if feudal possessors, let 
them revert to their direct owners. As for the principals and seconds in such 
contest, let them incur the penalty of excommunication, deprivation of all their 
honors, and be doomed to perpetual infamy, and let them be punished as mur- 
derers according to the sacred canons ; and if they have fallen in the conflict, let 
them be forever deprived of ecclesiastical burial. And let all who have in any 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 153 

The inevitable tendency of these arbitrary claims to secular 
authority is to merge the State in the Church. Kings and Empe- 
rors, nations and communities become merely the instruments, 
the pliant tools, of spiritual dominion. The kingdoms of the 
earth are inferior principalities to a magnificent hierarchy, the 
first places of which are reserved for ecclesiastical dignities. 
The higher commands the lower; and so the Pope can set his 
feet upon the neck of kings, and bind their nobles in fetters of 
iron. The Church includes the State, as the greater includes the 
less, as a bishop includes a priest, and a priest includes a deacon. 
The natural consequence is, that the supreme allegiance of the 
faithful is due primarily to the head of the Church. In a conflict 
of power between princes and popes — the first and highest duty 
of all the vassals of Rome, is to maintain her honor and support 
her claims. Hence the Jesuit, in his secret oath, renounces al- 
legiance to all earthly powers which have not been confirmed 
by the Holy See, and devotes his life and soul to the undivided 
services of the Pope. The Romish Church, too, sets her face 
like a flint against the subjection of her spiritual officers to the le- 
gal tribunals of the state, and has positively prohibited the intolera- 
ble presumption in laymen, though kings and magistrates, of de- 
manding oaths of allegiance from the lofty members of her hier- 
archy. * They are specially and emphatically her subjects, and 

way authorized or advised such duel, and even spectators be bound under excom- 
munication and everlasting curse, any privilege or depraved usage to the contra- 
ry notwithstanding. 

* " Nimis de jure Divino quidam laici usurpare conantur, cum viros eccle- 
siasticos, nihil temporale destinentes abeis.ad prasstandum fideljtates juramenta 
compeilunt. Quia vero, secundum Apostolum, servius suo Domino stat aut 
cadat ; sacri auctoritate concilii prohibemus, ne tales clerici personis sseculari- 
bus praestare cogantur hujusniodi juramentum." — IV. Lateran, Can. 43. Labbe, 
vol. xi. p. 191. 

Some laics attempt to usurp too much of divine right, when they compel 
ecclesiastics, holding nothing temporal of them, to take oaths of allegiance. 
But, inasmuch as the apostle says, " to his own master the servant stands or 
falls," we prohibit, on the authority of the sacred council, that such clerics be 
compelled to take oaths of this kind to secular petsons. 

That ecclesiastical officers should be tried only in ecclesiastical courts, is 
the standing doctrine of the Canon Law. I select a few extracts from 
Gibert's Corpus Juris Canonici. vol. iii. p. 530; 

8 



154 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

she cannot consent that their fealty should be transferred to 
others. Such principles are fatal to the independence of na- 
tions ; and just in proportion as the doctrines of Rome gain the 
ascendency among any people, just in the same proportion a se- 
cret enemy is cherished, slowly but surely plotting the destruc- 
tion of all institutions, however noble or sublime, that may hap- 
pen to contradict the humor of a bigoted Italian prince, or be in- 
consistent with decrees passed in ages of darkness, superstition, 
and despotism. The slaves of the papacy are taught to conceal 
their weapons until they are ready to strike — to disguise their 
hemlock and nightshade until they can prepare the deadly po- 
tation, with the certain prospect of success. But when once 
they become master of the sceptre and the sword, they are to 
strike for Rome, sell the liberties of the country to their spiritual 
lord, raise the banner of inhuman persecution, and purge the 
land from the damning stain of heretical pravity with the blood 
of its noblest sons. 

La Fayette is reported to have said, that if ever the liberties 
of this country should be destroyed, it would be by the machina- 
tions of Romish priests. They are all, in fact, the sworn sub- 
jects of a foreign potentate — they acknowledge an earthly king 
who has repeatedly denounced every distinctive principle for 
which our fathers bled — who, in the dark hour of their trial, 
when the sons of Poland rose up in the majesty of insulted nature, 
and demanded that freedom which is the birthright of nations, 
interposed his spiritual thunder to crush the rights of man. The 

" Ut nullus judicum neque Presbyterium, neque diaconum vel clericum 
ullum aut juniores ecclesiae sine scientia Pontificis per se distringat aut damnare 
praesumat. Clericus de omni erimina coram judice ecclesiastico debet conve- 
niri. la sacris canonibus generaliter traditur ut de omni crimine clericus 
debeat coram ecclesiastico judico conveniri. 

" A saeculari potestate nee ligari, nee solvi sacerdotem posse, manifestum 
est." 

No judge shall presume, of himself, without the knowledge of the Pontiff, 
to distress or condemn either priest or deacon, or any clergyman or younger 
members of the Church. A clerk must, on every charge, be brought before an 
ecclesiastical judge. In sacred canon, it is uniformly ordered that for every 
crime a cleric ought to come before a clerical judge. It is clear that a priest 
cannot be bound or loosed by a secular power. 



1 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 155 

priesthood of Rome is a formidable body. The moral elements 
which bind the human family together in the ties of truth, fidelity, 
and honor, are feeble to them as Samson's withes, or pointless as 
Priam's darts. To the outward eye all may be fair and seemly 
— but the country which they truly love, is that which is pre- 
pared to bow the knee to the authority of Rome, and lick the 
pontiff's feet. All other lands are accursed of God, and their 
vocation is to reclaim them from their ruin, to bring them into 
the holy fold, to overturn and overturn and overturn, until the 
Man of Sin is prepared to pronounce his magic benediction. 

The immortal Milton, " the champion and martyr of English 
liberty," as well as the "glory of English literature," the bold 
defender of the freedom of the press, the rights of conscience, 
and the rights of man, gave it as his deliberate opinion, that a 
Christian commonwealth, in consequence of the Pope's preten- 
sions to political power, and the idolatrous nature of his religious 
rites, ought not to tolerate his dangerous sect* When destitute 
of power or forming only a fraction of the community, papists 
may do no serious harm, but the serpent in the fable had lost no- 
thing of its venom, though it had lost its muscular activity. They 
whose eyes, night and day, are turned to the eternal city, whose 
prayers are hourly ascending for its glory, and whose zeal is devo- 
ted to its highest prosperity ; they who are persuaded that the ark 
of God is there, and that the hopes of man are centred in the favor 
of the monarch who sits upon the seven hills ; they who are bound, 
under an awful curse, to maintain the princely and divine preroga- 
tives which superstition, fanaticism, pride, and ambition have at- 
tributed to this august and venerable mortal, are not the men to love 
a land which is darkened by his frown, or blasted by his bitter 
execrations. They may take the usual oath of allegiance, but 
Lateran has taught them that oaths are breath, when the inter- 
ests of the Church demand their violation. There is but one tie 
which is stronger than death : the tie which binds them to Rome. 
Living or dying, in all states and conditions, in poverty or wealth, 
at home or abroad, wherever they are, or whatever they do, Rome 

* See the question discussed, " How far the religion of the Church of 
Rome 19 tolerable V* in Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. § xx. 



156 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

must never be forgotten. The claims of brotherhood, friend- 
ship, patriotism, and honor — all that is dear on earth, in private 
relations or public institutions, all mast be sacrificed when the 
voice of Rome commands it. She holds in her hands the dread 
retributions of eternity ; heaven or hell depends upon her nod ; 
and when she brings to bear her terrific sanctions, her faithfnl 
children throughout the world, to avoid the impending storm, nes- 
tle beneath her wings. Where is the state, community, or nation 
on the whole face of the earth, that can thunder with a voice like 
Rome ? What are laws, statutes, ordinances and oaths, when a sin- 
gle word from the eternal city can turn them, in the eyes of pa- 
pists, to vanity and wind ? When was it ever known that a faith- 
ful son of the Church respected the laios as much as his priest, 
his country as much as Rome, the highest tribunal of the land 
as much as the Pope ? It is idle to attempt to disguise the fact, 
that the religion of the Pope is essentially seditious. In its 
grasping ambition it tramples upon thrones, principalities and 
powers, subverts the liberty of nations, destroys the independence 
of states, and makes the sword and the sceptre alike subservient 
to its own relentless despotism. These results so obviously fol- 
low from the claims to temporal authority, which have already 
been considered, that many papists have been disposed to restrict 
the power of the Pope wholly within spiritual bounds. Hence 
a third view, that maintained by the Parliament of Paris and en- 
dorsed by the Gallican clergy, remains to be considered. 

According to this view, kings and rulers are not subject to 
the Sovereign Pontiff in the conduct of their secular affairs. 
Their jurisdiction is distinct from his : he moves in the orbit of 
spiritual dominion, and they in the orbit of temporal authority ; 
he deals in matters of supernatural faith, and they in matters of 
civil obedience. This theory is beautiful, and the distinction is 
just, but the doctrine of infallibility renders them practically 
worthless. The Pope has power to define articles of faith, and 
to instruct the faithful in the will of God. Whatever he pro- 
poses as an article of faith must, of course, be received with 
undoub ting faith. To admit the right of the people to deter- 
mine w r hat are articles of faith, and what are not, would be to in- 
troduce the odious principle of the right of private judgment. 



J 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 157 

Then if the Pope has plenary power to define the articles of Ca- 
tholic faith, and if every thing is to be received as an article of 
faith which he proposes as such, he can easily introduce his 
arbitrary claims to temporal jurisdiction, under the convenient 
disguise of supernatural revelation. He will not directly assert 
that he possesses the power of deposing kings, or subverting na- 
tions, but it is the will of God that heretical magistrates should 
not be encouraged, and obedience to their laws is a sanction of 
their crimes. He might caution the faithful not to be partakers 
in other men's sins, and guard them especially from encouraging 
the great in rebellion against God. The nice distinctions of the 
Gallican Church are mere dust and ashes, unless the doctrine of 
infallibility is denied, and the right of private judgment main- 
tained. If the people are bound to believe whatever the Pope 
may prescribe as an article of faith, the door is thrown wide 
open — as open as Hildebrand himself could wish it — for the intro- 
duction of all manner of treason. It is an idle evasion to say 
that although men are not judges of spiritual matters, yet they 
are judges of temporal matters, and therefore capable of deciding 
when the Sovereign Pontiff invades the territory of temporal 
jurisdiction. This plea would be good if the Sovereign Pontiff 
were fallible. They might then oppose their judgments to his 
decision. But if he be infallible, and pronounces a principle to 
be an article of faith, which they beforehand would have viewed 
as belonging to the sphere of the civil magistrate, they must, of 
course, yield their fallible opinion to an infallible decision. A 
crust of bread is mutton, wine, and beef; the sacred wafer is the 
Redeemer of men, soul, body, and divinity, if Rome pronounces 
them to be so. It is not more unreasonable that we should 
abandon our judgments about political rights at the bidding of 
his holiness, than that we should renounce our confidence — in- 
stinctive though it be — in the report of our senses. Practically , 
therefore, the theory of the Gallican clergy is no security from 
the encroachments of Rome. So long as infallibility is main- 
tained, it will poison the purest principles, and corrupt the fairest 
schemes. It affords an abundant entrance for that indirect pozcer 
over states, nations and empires, for which doctors have pleaded, 
councils decreed, and Popes intrigued, 



158 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

It is a pungent saying of Passavan, that " Satan tendered 
the earth and all its glory to Immanuel, and met with a peremp- 
tory rejection — he afterwards made the same overture to the 
Pope, who accepted the offer with thanks, and with the annexed 
condition of worshipping the Prince of Darkness." The subtle 
arts and crafty machinations by which, from small beginnings, 
the Popes have usurped, under various pretexts, the right of uni- 
versal dominion, are a pregnant proof of an intimate alliance 
with the father of lies. Their first interferences in the affairs 
of states were slow and gradual ; they were content to use their 
spiritual authority in instigating subjects to rebellion, or embroil- 
ing nations in war. Encouraged by success, they rose higher 
and higher in their claims until the summit of pontifical arro- 
gance was reached in the person of Hildebrand. What a chasm 
between Gregory II. and Gregory VII., filled up with gins, 
snares, and nets, fraud, hypocrisy, and lies ! While the succes- 
sors of St. Peter have pretended to labor for the salvation of 
souls, it is plain that nations have been their game, kings their 
victims, and diadems their hope. The golden vision of univer- 
sal empire, which encouraged the zeal, quickened the efforts and 
soothed the anxieties of Gregory VII., has never ceased to float 
before the minds of his successors, and make them at once the 
enemies of man, and the objects of abhorrence to God. Their 
eyes are fixed upon the earth, and the cup of their ambition will 
never be full, until, from east to west, from north to south, every 
kindred, tongue and language, all the tribes and families of man, 
shall acknowledge the Pope, as king of kings and lord of lords. 
To accomplish this grand and magnificent purpose, Jesuits are 
found in every country, plying their labors with untiring zeal. 
Their voice is heard amid the roar of the cataract in the forests 
of the savage, or it charms the circles of the giddy and the gay 
in the saloons of refinement and elegance — their shadows are 
seen in the dusky light of the convict's cell, and their persons are 
found in the halls of the great, and the palaces of kings. They 
stoop to instruct the child in its alphabet, and the young in phi- 
losophy, and delight to discuss with senators aud statesmen the 
policy of states. Hunger, cold, and all the inclemencies of the 
sky are cheerfully endured in their exhausting journeys — the 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 159 

frosts of winter consume them by night, and sleep departs from 
their eyes, and yet their zeal is invincible, and their industry un- 
tiring. There is one glorious object which animates their hopes 
— which lifts them above the ordinary passions of man — and ren- 
ders them insensible to danger and fearless of death. That ob- 
ject is the triumph of Rome. For her they have sacrificed moral 
character, personal comforts, the delight of patriotism, and the 
endearments of home. To her they are devoted with a terrible 
enthusiasm — which is cool and collected, because too intense to 
be vented in passion, or wasted in extravagance ; and if Rome 
should ever triumph, they are the men whose principles shall 
be lord of the ascendant, and dictate law to all the nations of the 
earth. In their diligence, industry, zeal and enthusiasm, let the 
people of this country learn their danger and provide for their 
safety. 

There are peculiar principles in the constitution of the polity 
of Rome which render it an engine of tremendous poicer. The 
doctrine of auricular confession establishes a system of espionage 
which is absolutely fatal to personal independence ; and, from the 
intimate connexion between Priests and Bishops, and Bishops 
and the Pope, all the important secrets of the earth can easi- 
ly be transmitted' to the Vatican. What can be more alarm- 
ing than a whole army, scattered through the length and breadth 
of the land, in close and secret correspondence with a tyrant 
who detests every principle that makes life dear, or a country 
glorious? The ingenuity of earth and hell, could not devise a 
more successful expedient for prostrating liberty, enslaving the 
conscience, and introducing the Pope to an intimate acquaintance 
with all the purposes and interests of man, than the scheme of 
auricular confession. It opens a window into the chambers of 
the heart, and permits a mortal to read those secrets which it is 
the sole prerogative of God to know, 

I have now, I apprehend, sufficiently shown that, according 
to the principles of Rome, the civil power is subservient to the 
spiritual — the state is a tool of the church. It will be seen at a 
glance, that such an assumption is not only fatal to the indepen- 
dence of states, but equally fatal to liberty of conscience and 
toleration of dissenters. The right to persecute is a legitimate 



160 ROMANTST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

deduction from the relative position in which the church and 
state, on the pontifical hypothesis, stand to each other. It is 
the business of the magistrate to propagate religion, and as his 
weapons are exclusively carnal, the dungeon, pillory, and rack, 
he has a right to employ them in exacting uniformity of faith. 
Bossuet was able to boast, that en one point all Christians had 
long been unanimous — the right of the civil magistrate to prop- 
agate truth by the sword. In every form and shape, by the 
writings of private individuals, the bulls of Popes, the canons of 
councils, and above all by public, flagrant, inhuman acts of mur- 
der, rapine, and violence, the Holy See has asserted its claim to 
mould the faith of men, through the arm of the magistrate, to 
its own detestable model. I need not insist on the ruthless cru- 
sades against the innocent victims of Languedoc and Provence 
— on the infernal atrocities of the Inquisition, or the awful mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomews ; the annals of the papacy are writ- 
ten in blood. From almost every quarter of the globe, the vic- 
tims of its cruelties shall send their cries to heaven for ven- 
geance on their destroyers. It is enough to know that if the 
infallibility of Rome were not pledged, through her Pope and 
councils, to the ferocious principles of persecution, it results ne- 
cessarily from the views which she takes of the state. In her 
eyes, want of conformity with her own faith is an act of rebel- 
lion, a contumacious rejection of civil authority, and should, there- 
fore, be punished by the temporal power, on the same ground by 
which punishment for incest, rape, or murder is justified. It is, 
first, according to her, the duty of governments, as suck, to be nurs- 
ing-fathers to her faith, and then to spread it at the point of the 
bayonet, and with garments rolled in blood. The truth is, the 
only principle which can secure an equal toleration, and uphold 
the liberty of conscience, is the absolute separation of church 
and state. They cannot contract an alliance without engen- 
dering the monster intolerance. Csesar and God must be kept 
distinct; the state, as such, is not a religions institution, though 
all the people who compose it may be devoutly religious; and 
when it assumes the propagation of religion as one of its dis- 
tinctive ends, it is travelling beyond its limits, and laying the 
foundation of bigotry, intolerance, and despotism. No govern- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REPUTED. 161 

ment on earth has a right to establish Christianity or any other 
system of religion by law, and no church on earth has a right to 
commend its doctrines or enforce its discipline by pains, penalties, 
or civil disabilities. To keep the state within the bounds of its 
appropriate jurisdiction, is the secret of civil liberty, and to re- 
strain the church within its own department of spiritual instruc- 
tion, is the secret of religious liberty. When these two grand 
organizations of God cross the orbits of each other, they me- 
nace the earth with anarchy, confusion and blood. They can 
never coalesce ; and all arbitrary unions, like the converse of the 
sons of God with the daughters of men, are productive only of 
giants, famous for rebellion, and full of cruelty. 

I shall now close what I intended to suggest on the infalli- 
bility of the Romish church. It will be remembered that you, 
sir, made this the medium of your triumphant proof of the in- 
spiration of the Apocrypha. I have met and refuted all your 
arguments — and shown, in addition, that every theory of papal 
infallibility, whether that of councils, popes, or the body of the 
church, is compassed with historical difficulties fatal to its truth. 
I have proved, moreover, that such extravagant pretensions are 
utterly inconsistent wJth truth, morality, religion, and liberty — the 
highest and noblest interests of man. The state of the argument 
then is just this : 1st. Infallibility is a fiction^ resting upon no 
authority of Scripture, upon no principles of reason, and contra- 
dicted by the testimony of the best and purest ages of the church. 
Therefore any argument which is based upon this " worthless 
coinage of the brain" may be safely given to the winds — and 
therefore, your proof of the inspiration of the Apocrypha would 
have been just as conclusive, if you had appealed to the testimony 
of the man in the moon. 2d. If infallibility be admitted, then 
truth, morality, religion, and liberty must fall to the ground — 
for it is absolutely inconsistent with all these distinguished bless- 
ings. Here, then, is a perfect reductio ad absurdum. So that 
infallibility destroys itself, and leaves us in quiet possession of 
private judgment, with all the benefits that follow in its train. 



162 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

LETTER X. 

Apocrypha not quoted in the New Testament. 

Before proceeding to the third general division of your let- 
ters, I^shall pause for a moment to discuss a point which would 
detain me too long in its proper place, and which may be taken 
as a fair illustration of your deplorable incompetency to resolve 
any question involving the laws of literary criticism. When I 
read your effort to prove that Christ and the apostles, in their re- 
corded instruction actually quoted or referred to passages of the 
Apocrypha, I was forcibly reminded of those ingenious and 
discriminating authors who have been able to discover what 
they supposed to be unquestionable traces of the doctrines of the 
Cabbala in the Lord's prayer and the Epistles of Paul. Those 
who are silly enough to be convinced by the empty parade of 
texts which you have strung together in your second letter, ought 
not to withhold their assent from the learned speculations of 
Knorrius, confirmed as they are by the authority of so laborious 
a writer as Budda3us. That a man of sufficient perspicacity to 
find the Cabbala in the memorable declaration of Paul, "It is a 
faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners," should also detect in the 
New Testament traces of Apocryphal lore, would be only to 
exercise, in a different way, the same faculty of critical second 
sight. He that can discern disembodied spirits, requires, per- 
haps, no additional organs to perceive a devil. The passage 
which you have adduced as genuine quotations from the Apoc- 
rypha, or rather, which you have followed Huetius in treating as 
such, I am sure will strike no one in the same light, but those 
who are previously persuaded that if these books are not, they 
ought to have been, quoted by Christ and his apostles. The 
strongest evidence, I apprehend, upon which your position can 
be made to rest, will be found in an appeal to a General Council. 
If you could induce some such body as that of Trent (and a con- 
viction of interest is all the inducement which needs to be urged) 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 163 

to decree that these passages are quotations why then quotations 
they would have to be considered.* 



* I will lay before you some of the texts of the New Testament, in 
which the passages of those works are quoted or referred to. 

1 . " See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to 
thee by another." Tob. iv. 16. "All things, therefore, whatsoever you would 
that men should do to you, do ye also unto them." Matt. vii. 12. " And as 
you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them in like manner." 
Luke vi. 31. 

2. " Happy shall I be, if there shall remain of my seed, to see the glory of 
Jerusalem. The gates of Jerusalem shall be built of Sapphire and Emerald, 
and all the walls thereof round about of precious stones. All its streets shall 
be paved with white and clean stones ; and Alleluia shall be sung in its streets. 
Blessed be the Lord who hath exalted it, and may He reign in it for ever, 
and ever, Amen." Tobias xiii. 20-23. 

" And the building of the wall thereof was of Jasper stones, but the city 
itself pure gold, like to clear glass. — And the foundation of the walls of the 
city were adorned with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation 
wes Jasper, the second, Sapphire .... the twelfth, an Amethyst. And the 
twelve gates are twelve pearls, one to each : and every several gate was of one 
several pearl. — And the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent 
rlass." Apocalypse or Rev. xxi. 18-21. 

3. " But they that did not receive the trials with the fear of the Lord, but 
uttered their impatience, and the reproach of their murmuring against the 
Lord, were destroyed by the destroyer ; and perished by serpents." Judith 
viii. 24, 25. 

" Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them tempted and perished by the 
serpents. Neither do you murmur : as some of them murmured, and were 
destroyed by the destroyer." 1 Cor. x. 9, 10. 

4. " The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the 
reeds." Wisdom iii. 7. " Then shall the just shine as the sun, in the kingdom 
of their Father." Matt. xiii. 43. 

5. " They (the just) shall judge nations and rule over people, and their 
Lord shall reign for ever." Wisdom iii. 8. " Know you not that the saints 
shall judge the world ? 1 Cor. vi. 2. 

6. " He pleased t^od and was beloved, and living among sinners he was 
translated." Wisdom iv. 10. " By faith Enoch was translated that he should 
not see death, and he was not found, because God had translated him. For 
before his translation, he had testimony that he pleased God." Heb. xi. 5. 

7. " For she (Wisdom) is the brightness of Eternal Light, and the unspotted 
mirror of God's Majesty, and the image of His goodness." Wisdom vii. 26. 
" Who (the Son of God) being the brightness of his glory, and the figure of 
his substance, &c." Heb. i. 3. See also 2 Cor. iv. 4, and Col. i. 5. 



164 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

The first text which you give us as a quotation from the 
Apocrypha, is the golden rule of our Saviour: " Therefore all 

8. " For who among men is he that can know the counsel of God 1 or 
who can think what the will of God is]" Wisdom, ix. 13. "For who 
hath known the mind of the Lord] or who hath been his counsellor V* 
Rom. xi. 34. 

9. " The potter also tempering soft earth, with labor fashioneth every 
vessel for our service ; and of the same clay he maketh both vessels that are 
for clean uses, and likewise such as serve to the contrary ; but what is the use 
of these vessels the potter is the judge." Wisdom xv. 7. " Or hath not the 
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, 
and another unto dishonor." Rom ix. 21. 

10. " Or if they admired their power and their effects, let them understand 
by them, that he who made them is mightier than they ; for by the greatness 
of the beauty and the creature, the Creator of them may be seen, so as to be 
kncwn thereby." Wisdom xiii. 4, 5. For the invisible things of him, from 
the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made." Rom. i. 20. 

11. " And his zeal will take armor and he will arm the creature for the 
revenge of his enemies. He will put on justice as a breastplate, and will take 
true judgment instead of a helmet. He will take equity for an invincible 
shield : and he will sharpen his severe wrath for a spear." Wisdom v. 18-21. 
" Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist 
in the evil day and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your 
loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice .... in all 
things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the 
fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salva- 
tion ; and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God)." Eph. vi. 13-17. 

12. " They that fear the Lord, will not be incredulous to his word ; and they 
that love him will keep his way. — They that fear the Lord will seek after 
the things that are well pleasing to him : and they that love him shall be 
filled with his law . . . They that fear the Lord, keep his commandments, and 
will have patience, even until his visitation." Ecclesiasticus ii. 18-21. "If 
any one love me, he will keep my word." Jno. xiv. 23. 

13. " My son, meddle not with many matters: and if thou be rich, thou 
shall not be free from sin." Eccle. xi. 10. " For they that will become rich, 
fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable 
and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition." 1 
Tim. vi. 9. 

14. " There is one that is enriched by living sparingly, and this is the 
portion of his reward. In that he saith : I have found me rest, and now I 
will eat my goods alone ; and he knoweth not what time shall pass, and that 
death approacheth, and that he must leave all to others and shall die," Eccle- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 165 

things, whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them : for this is the law and the prophets."* Matt, 
vii. 12; Luke vi. 31. This you would have us to believe was 
suggested to the Saviour by Tobit iv. 15, which in the Douay 
version is rendered, " See thou never do to another what thou 
wouldest hate to have done to thee by another." The reader, 
however, will observe that this is not a translation but a para- 
phrase. The original is: o pLcrsig fir ( d8VL Tronic. u What thou 
hatest, do to no one." Now the question is, whether the four 
words that constitute the substance of the Apocryphal passage, 
suggested to our Lord the fifteen words which, in the original, 
embody the golden rule, as found in the memorable sermon on 
the mount. There is evidently no quotation in the case, since 
there is but a single word which they have in common. Nei- 
ther, on the other hand, is there any such coincidence of thought 
as to warrant the supposition that our Saviour had in his mind 
the passage from Tobit, when he announced the principle re- 
corded in Matthew. Our Saviour's precept, as Grotius has very 
properly observed, is positive, while that in Tobit is negative. 
In the sermon on the mount our Saviour tells us what to per- 
form, and Tobit, in his instructions to his son, what to avoid ; 
the one resolves us in the things that are right, and the other in 
the things that are wrong. One, in short, is a command, the 



xi. 18, 19, 20. "And I (the rich man in the parable) will say to my soul: 
Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thy rest ; eat, drink, 
make good cheer. But God said to him : Thou fool, this night do they require 
thy soul of thee ; and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided 1" 
Luke xii. 19, 20. 

15. "If thou wilt keep the commandments and perform acceptable fidelity 
for ever, they shall preserve thee." Eccle. xv. 16. " If thou wilt enter into 
life, keep the commandments." Matt. xix. 17. 

16. The passage of St. Paul: "But others were racked, not accepting 
deliverance, that they might find a better resurrection (Heb. xi. 35)," has 
been acknowledged, even by Protestant commentators, to be, and evidently is, 
a reference to the account of the martyrdom of Eleazer, given in the second 
book of Maccabees, vi. 18-31. 

* Huetius, who also gives the golden rule as a quotation from this passage 
of Tobit, admits, at the same time, that it might have been suggested as a dic- 
tate of nature. Demonstratio Evangel, vol. i. p. 307. De Libro Tobice. 



166 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

other a prohibition. There is no more coincidence of thought 
betwixt these two passages, than between Exod. xx. 15, " Thou 
shalt not steal" and Rom. xiii. 7, " Render therefore to all their 
dues." And yet, who would dream of maintaining that the pre- 
cept of Paul is either a literal quotation of the eighth command- 
ment, or was necessarily suggested by the form in which it is 
recorded in the book of Exodus? " What thou hatest," says 
Tobit, " do to none ;" " What thou lovest," says our Saviour sub- 
stantially, " do to all" If, now, our Saviour quoted from Tobit, 
upon the same principle of criticism every positive, contrary to 
the usual order of thought, must be suggested by its correspond- 
ing negative. But our Saviour himself has put the matter be- 
yond the possibility of doubt. The rule which he gave us was a 
compendious expression of the moral instructions of the law and 
the prophets. As you have freely acknowledged that the Apoc- 
ryphal writings were not to be found in the canon of the Jewish 
Church, you will hardly contend that the " law and the pro- 
phets" embraced any of those books which Josephus mentions as 
not being possessed of equal authority with the twenty-two which 
he had previously enumerated. You will also admit, for it 
would certainly be useless to deny, that the canonical books of 
the Old Testament were divided into three classes : the Law, 
the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. Now, if the Saviour him- 
self is to be trusted, his memorable rule must have been sug- 
gested by something which is found, not in any Apocryphal wri- 
ter, but in the law and the prophets — in the acknowledged canon 
of the Jewish Church. His sermon on the mount is in fact a 
divine exposition of the ethical code which is contained in the 
Old Testament, with special reference to the corruptions and 
abuses which ignorant and wicked teachers had introduced and 
fostered. He explains the moral law, and maintains its strict- 
ness, purity, and extent, in opposition to the destructive glosses of 
the Scribes, Pharisees, and Doctors. 

The golden rule itself is evidently nothing but a statement, in 
another form, of the principle of universal love. Our own ex- 
pectations from others are made the standard of our conduct 
towards them — that is, our love to ourselves is to be the exact 
measure of our love to other men. The passage in Matt. xxii. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 167 

35-40, will throw additional light upon this whole subject. Our 
Saviour there condenses the law into two great commandments, 
love to God and love to man, and then adds, that " on these two 
commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that Matt. vii. 12 teaches precisely the same 
thing as Matt. xxii. 39 — " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self," and this passage is a literal quotation, not from Tobit, but 
from the book of Leviticus (xix. 18). This was the text upon 
which our Saviour's mind was unquestionably fixed when he 
announced his celebrated maxim ; it was, in fact, constantly 
before his eyes, and so frequently explained, as well as earnestly 
inculcated and enforced by so many new and peculiar sanctions, 
as to be almost entitled to the name of a new commandment. 
Between the rule in Leviticus, and the precept of our Saviour, 
there is an exact coincidence of thought. Both are positive — 
and both make our regard for ourselves the standard of our treat- 
ment to others. One is the text and the other a faithful com- 
mentary. " Love thy neighbor as thyself/' says the Law. 
" What you would love to have done to you, do to others," says 
the Saviour. How it could fail to strike your attention that the 
passage in Leviticus was especially before the mind of our Re- 
deemer, when he refers you so distinctly to the Law, surpasses 
my comprehension. Can it be, sir, that your Biblical reading 
is confined exclusively, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, 
to books which possess no other authority but that of man 1 I 
can well conceive that the book of Tobit would be peculiarly a 
favorite with the votaries of Rome. It is pervaded with such a 
tinge of superstition, nonsense, heresy, and will-worship, as to 
give it a powerful charm in the eyes of those who bear the image 
of the beast. 

" A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." 

You are hardly more successful in your attempt to deduce 
the magnificent description of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the 
Apocalypse of John, from what you suppose to be a correspond- 
ing passage in the same Book of Tobit.* You have again fol- 
lowed the Douay version, which, however it may agree with the 
Vulgate, does not precisely render the original. The English 
* Vide Huetii Demonstrate, vol. i. p. 307. Libro Tobiae. 



168 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

reader will find the passage to which you refer in Tobit xiii. 15- 
18, of the authorized translation. 

There can be evidently no quotation in this passage, since 
John is describing a vision, just as he saw it. He saw the jas- 
per, gold, and precious stones which adorned the foundations of 
the holy city, and testifies what he had seen. He does not pre- 
tend to give us a picture of the fancy, but a real view ; and of 
course his language must be suggested by the things themselves. 
In such descriptions, quotations may be introduced to embellish 
or adorn, but most assuredly the names of things themselves must 
be suggested by the objects before the mind. Again, the whole 
description is so strikingly analogous to several passages in Isaiah 
and Ezekiel, that if there be any allusion to other writers at all, 
it is to these venerable prophets. The twelve gates in the vision 
of John correspond precisely to the twelve gates in the vision of 
Ezekiel (xlviii. 31-34). The golden reed with which the angel 
measured the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof, 
may be in allusion to the measuring reed and the line of flax in 
Ezekiel xl. 3. The garnishing of the foundations of the wall 
with all manner of precious stones, corresponds with the promise 
of Isaiah (liv. 11, 12) ; "I will lay thy stones with fair colors, 
and lay thy foundation with sapphires. And 1 will make thy 
windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy bor- 
ders of pleasant stones." The brilliant illumination of the city by 
the presence of God, is in exact accordance with Isaiah xxiv. 
23; Ix. 19, 20. The truth is, these precious stones with which 
the city was adorned, as seen by John, are the common and fa- 
miliar figures by which the glory of the church is constantly 
depicted in the sacred writers. The splendid decorations of 
Solomon's temple, independently of any other cause, would nat- 
urally suggest these symbolical embellishments. That they occur, 
consequently, in different writers, and in the same connection, is 
no proof whatever of quotation or reference, it only shows a 
familiar and common method of illustration. If the church, for 
instance, be compared to a kingdom, two or a dozen writers 
might describe its peculiarities in conformity with this scriptural 
metaphor, and yet be ignorant of each other's compositions. The 
metaphor itself would suggest analogous trains of thought. So 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 169 

when the church is compared to a city, to a splendid and mag- 
nificent city, the usual appendages of walls, gates, and ornaments 
will be obviously presented to the mind ; or if it be compared 
to a temple, the splendor and pomp of Solomon's unparalleled 
edifice would probably be the first association in a Jewish under- 
standing. 

It manifests, therefore, nothing but consummate ignorance 
of the laws of thought, to suppose that the description of the 
holy city in the Apocalypse of John must needs be taken from 
the rhapsody of Tobit, because both speak of walls and founda- 
tions, jasper, amethyst, and gold. It is much more probable that 
Tobit borrowed from Chronicles, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. 

Your attempt to make I Cor. x. 9, 10, a quotation from 
Judith, is too ridiculous to need refutation. # Paul is appealing 
to the recorded history of the " fathers, " as furnishing salutary 
examples of practical instruction. He gives us, consequently, a 
brief summary of the leading events connected with their re- 
moval from Egypt, and their ultimate settlement in Canaan. 
This summary, of course, is taken from the history itself. It is 
just an epitome of what may be found fully recorded in the books 
of Moses. The passage in Judith, therefore, is just as much a 
quotation from the Pentateuch as that of Paul. Strictly, how- 

* " Thirdly, in favor of the book of Judith, they bring two citations, one 
made by St. Paul when he said — they were destroyed ly the destroyer — and 
another by St. James, who said, the Scripture was fulfilled, and Abraham was 
called the friend of God ; both which passages (if there were any credit to be 
given to Serarius) are borrowed out of the eighth chapter of Judith, as we read 
them in the Latin paraphrase of that book : for in the Greek copies, there is 
never a word like them to be found. But whom shall the Jesuit persuade that 
the apostles quoted a Latin paraphrase, which was not extant in their time? 
Or if we should grant that the Greek or Chaldean copies had as much in them 
of old, as the Latin hath now, yet who would believe that St. Paul and St. 
James alluded rather to the book of Judith than to the book of Numbers, 1 
where they that were destroyed by the destroyer, are upon record at large, 
and to the book of Genesis, 2 where the story of Abraham is recited, together 
with the second book of the Chronicles 3 where Abraham is called the Friend 
of God, and the book of Esay 4 where God himself saith of him, " Abraham my 
friend." Cosin, Scholast. Hist. Can. p. 25. 

1) Numbers xi v. 16. 2) Gen. xv. 16. 3) 2Chron.xx. 7. 4) Isaiah xli. 8, 



170 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

ever, neither passage is a quotation. Both writers have simply 
availed themselves of the same facts, to inculcate lessons of piety 
and wisdom. 

Your fourth passage is equally unfortunate. Matthew xiii. 
43, is not a quotation from the book of Wisdom, but is a palpa- 
ble allusion to Daniel xi. 3, and Proverbs iv. 18. The passage 
in Matthew is, " Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun 
in the kingdom of their Father." The passage in Wisdom is, 
" In the time of their visitation, they shall shine and run to and 
fro like sparks among the stubble." 

Now how is it possible that " running to and fro like sparks 
among the stubble," could ever suggest the idea of the brilliancy 
of the sun in the firmament of heaven ? If in the book of Wis- 
dom it had been written, that the righteous should be like glow- 
worms or fire-flies, there would have been just as solid founda- 
tions for saying that this gave rise to the magnificent image of 
the Saviour in depicting the fate of the just at the end of the 
world. The expression in Daniel is suited to the dignity of the 
subject — " They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament ;" or as it is in Proverbs, " The path of the just is as 
the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day." 

Equally futile is your attempt to make 1 Cor. vi. 2, a quota- 
tion from Wisdom iii. 8. It is, in fact, only another form of 
stating the promise that the kingdom and the greatness of the 
kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of 
the saints of the most High God. Paul had before his mind the 
ultimate triumphs of the kingdom of God, which is the burden 
of prophetic inspiration, and the constant subject of believing 
prayer. We have precisely the same idea in Psalms xlix. 14— 
"Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on 
them ; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the 
morning, 1 ' And in Daniel vii. 32 — "Judgment was given to the 
saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints pos- 
sessed the kingdom." 

Wisdom* iv. 10, and Hebrews xi. 15, are both in pointed 

* " In the first place, for the canonizing of the Book of Wisdom, they pro- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 171 

reference to Genesis v. 22-24, and therefore neither is a quota- 
tion from the other. Paul was not in the habit of dealing with 
second-hand authorities. He therefore goes to the original 
record for the history of Enoch, and not to a doubtful and obscure 
writer some centuries afterwards. 

On comparing Heb. i. 3, with Wisdom vii. 26, there is but 
a single word which they possess in common. The ideas are 
evidently not the same ; Paul is treating of a person and the au- 
thor of Wisdom of an attribute. How the use of a solitary word 
can establish a coincidence in the passages themselves, I am 
utterly unable to comprehend. To make out a quotation or a 



duce St. Paul, and say that Rom. xi. 34 (Who hath made known the mind of the 
Lord, or who hath heen his counsellor 1) is taken out of Wisdom ix. 13. (For 
what man is he that can know the counsel of God, or who can think what the 
will of the Lord is?) But Gretseris somewhat ashamed of this instance ; and 
our answer to it is, that the sentence which St. Paul citeth is clearly taken out 
of Esay xl. 13, where both the sense and the words (in that translation which 
the Apostle followed) are altogether the same, as in the book of Wisdom they 
are not. Secondly, as much may we say to what they note upon Heb. i. 3. 
where Christ is called the brightness of his Father's glory, alluding to Sap. vii. 
26, where Wisdom is called the brightness of everlasting light. For as it is 
not certain whether St. Paul ever saw that Book of Wisdom or no, which, for 
aught we know, was not extant before his time, nor compiled by any other au- 
thor than Philo, the Hellenist Jew of Alexandria, so there be several expres- 
sions in the undoubted Scriptures, concerning the representation, the splendor, 
the wisdom and the glory of God, whereunto he might allude in this his Epistle 
to the Hebrews, as he had done before in his Epistle to the Colossians, and in 
his second Epistle to the Corinthians, setting forth Christ there to be the image 
of the invisible God and the first-born of every creature, by whom all things 
were created and do still consist ; the substance and ground whereof may be 
found in Ezekiel i. 28 ; Isaiah ix. 6, and lx. 1 ; Psalms ii. 7, and cxxxvi. 5 ; 2 
Samuel vii. 14 ; Jeremiah li. 15, and x. 12, to some of which places the Apos- 
tle himself refers in this place to the Hebrews. Thirdly, that which is said of 
Enoch (Heb. xi. 5) needs not the Book of Wisdom to confirm it, for the story 
is clear in Genesis, and in the translation of the Septuagint (which St. Paul 
followed) the words are alike. Fourthly, that the powers which be are ordained 
of God was said by the wisdom of God itself in Solomon (Prov. viii. 15, 16) ; 
and, fifthly, that God is no accepter of persons is taken out of the words of 
Moses in Deuteronomy (x. 7). And yet there are, that refer both these max- 
ims to the Book of Wisdom, as if St. Paul had found them nowhere else."— 
Cosin, Scholast. Hist. Can. p. 23,24. 



172 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

reference, there must be either identity of expression or identity 
of thought, and where neither is found, no quotation exists. 

Romans xi. 34, if quoted at all, is quoted from Isaiah and 
not from Wisdom. The prominent idea of the passage frequently 
occurs both in Job and the Prophet : Job xv. 8, Isaiah lx. 
13, &,c. The analogy in Rom. ix. 21, occurs in Jeremiah and 
Proverbs as well as the book of Wisdom : Jer. xviii. 6, Prov. 
xvi. 4. Romans i. 20 is a plain allusion to the nineteenth 
Psalm. The passage in Ephes. vi. 13-20, is much more analo- 
gous to Isaiah lix. 17, than to any thing that occurs in the book 
of Wisdom. It is evidently, however, an original passage. The 
preceding train of thought naturally and obviously suggested this 
beautiful account of Christian armor; it grew almost unavoida- 
bly out of the metaphor employed. 

Romans i. 20, is in evident allusion to Psalm xix. 1, and not, 
as you pretend, to Wisdom xiii. 4-5. 

The connection between love and obedience is one of the 
most familiar and common ideas in the whole Pentateuch. You 
will find it in Deut. vi. 5, 6; x. 12, &,c. ; and it is just this con- 
nection which our Saviour insists on in John xiv. 15 — 22 

Proverbs xv. 27, xx. 21, are much more analogous to 1 Tim. 
vi. 9, than the passage which you have extracted from Ecclesias- 
ticus. The train of thought in the parable of the rich fool in the 
gospel, might have been more readily discovered in the Psalms 
of David than the obscure authority to which you have referred 
us. (See Ps. Ixix. 10 seq.) 

Matthew xix. 17, is plainly a reference to Levit. xviii. 5. 
That Hebrews xi. 35, contains a reference to 2 Maccabees vi. 
18-31, in which an account is given of the martyrdom of Elea-j 
zar, is not so certain as you seem to apprehend ; even if it were 
certain, nothing is proved but the historical fidelity of the narra- 
tive, which is far from being identical with inspiration. # 

* Where for the persons, the matter is not so sure. For other men are of 
another mind ; and Paulas Burgensis (whose additions have the honor, even 
among the Romanists themselves, to be printed with Lyra's Notes and the or- 
dinary gloss upon the Bible) understands not St. Paul here to have spoken of 
Eleazar and his brethren in the time of the Maccabees, but of the saints and 
martyrs of God that had been tortured in his own time, under the New Tes- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 173 

I have now noticed the several instances in which you pro- 
fess to have discovered traces of the Apocrypha in the writers of 
the New Testament; and I think that any candid reader must be 
fully convinced that in every case in which an allusion exists at 
all, it is to the Jewish canon, and not to the corrupt additions of 
the Council of Trent. But still nothing would be gained by sat- 
isfactory proof that Christ and his apostles made use of the 
Apocrypha. Mere quotations prove nothing but the existence of 
the books from which they are made. Paul introduces lines 
from the heathen poets in various parts of his writings, and 
many have supposed that a striking analogy subsists between 
portions of the gospel of John and the speculations of Philo. No- 
thing is gained, therefore, in behalf of the inspiration of the 
Apocryphal books, by proving that quotations were made from 
them by Christ and his apostles. This may have been done and 
yet the books themselves be entitled to no more reverence than 
Tully's Offices or Seneca's Epistles. * 

In the progress of this discussion, your profound ignorance 
of the word of God has struck me with painful and humiliating 
force. The only books in the whole Bible which you seem to 
have studied at all, are those which the Church of God, in an- 
cient and modern times, has unanimously excluded from the sa- 
cred canon. The Law and the Prophets, to which our Saviour 
so often alludes, seem to be utterly unknown to you; and how- 

tament. And for the canonical authority of the book (if any book be here cited), 
whatever it was, the reference here made to it gave it no more authority of 
authentic Scripture, than the words immediately following gave to another re- 
ceived story among the Hebrews, that Esay the Prophet was sawn asunder to 
death. Whereunto, though the Apostle might have reference, when he said 
(they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, viere slain with the 
sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, af- 
flicted, tormented,) yet whoever made all these instances, before St. Paul wrote 
them, to be authentic and canonical Scripture ] or who can with reason deny 
(if Monsieur Perron's reason were good) but that the story of Esay's death 
ought to be canonized, as well as the story of Eleazar and his seven brethren in 
the Maccabees ; seeing there is as much reason for the one as can be given for 
the other." — Cosin. Scholast. Hist. Can. p. 27, 28. 

* Vide, on this subject of quotations, Rainoldi Censura Librorum Apoc. vol. i. 
p. 77, Praeleetio 7. 



174 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

ever clear his references to these venerable documents, your 
sagacity can seize upon nothing but Tobit, Judith, and Wisdom. 
The instinct of superstition is too strong for argument or criti- 
cal skill. If you find a single phrase which can be tortured into 
a remote approximation to coincidence of thought, you instantly 
leap for joy, like Archimedes from his bath, and expose your lit- 
erary nakedness in the ecstacy of your foolish delight. In a clumsy 
paraphase of a passage in Tobit, you scent out the golden rule 
of the Son of God, though that rule had been revealed centuries 
before Tobit was born or blind, in the law of the Lord. In that 
same precious compound of superstition and folly you meet with 
something about the city of the Jews adorned with gold, jasper, 
and precious stones, and behold ! the magnificent description of 
the entranced apostle dwindles down into a puerile plagiarism; 
sparks and stubble give you the clue to the glorious picture which 
our Saviour has drawn of the final condition of the blessed, and 
Paul cannot allude to the ultimate triumphs of the kingdom of 
God, without being indebted to a feeble passage in the book of 
Wisdom. Sir, these are the fooleries of criticism. They show 
any thing but the hand of a master or the pen of a scholar. There 
was an effort to destroy the fame of the author of Paradise Lost, 
by robbing him of the praise of original invention, in his noble 
production. The immortal bard was denounced as a plagiarist. 
Permit me to say that your folly is as great, although your inge- 
nuity is not so acute as that displayed by the wretched slanderer 
of the greatest, brightest, most glorious name that adorns the 
annals of English literature. The case was much more plausibly 
made out that Milton borrowed from obscurer men, than that 
Christ and his apostles have quoted from the Apocrypha. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 175 



LETTER XT. 

Exclusion of the Apocrypha from the Jewish canon. — Definition of the term canon ; account 
of the manner in which it was formed.— The evidence necessary to make a book canon- 
ical. — The distinction between not receiving and rejecting a book shown to be false. 

I have now reached the third partition of your letters, in 
which you attempt, whether successfully or not remains yet to 
be determined, to refute my arguments against the inspiration of 
the Apocrypha. You have undertaken to show that the au- 
thors of these books wrote " as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost," and that their productions are, by consequenee, entitled 
to equal veneration and authority with the Law, the Prophets and 
the Psalms. Your great argument, based upon the fiction of 
papal infallibility, has been already " shorn of its beams," and if 
it should appear to your mind, as it does to mine, in " dim 
eclipse, scattering disastrous twilight" around it, I hope that 
your failure in presenting it will teach you a lesson of modesty, 
hereafter, and guard you effectually from undertaking a subject 
too high for your abilities. 

As your refutation begins with a desultory notice of my first 
argument, it will be necessary to present the argument itself dis- 
tinctly but briefly, and then discuss the validity of your reply. I 
assumed as true what is capable of being proved by abundant 
testimony, and what you yourself have freely admitted, that these 
books are not to be found in the Jewish canon. The question 
naturally arises why they were excluded, or, what is substantially 
the same, why they were not introduced : my answer was, be- 
cause they were not inspired. That their exclusion from the Jew- 
ish canon is satisfactory evidence to us that they were destitute 
of divine authority, was made to appear from a very simple and 
conclusive process of reasoning. If they were inspired, the 
canon of the Jews was evidently defective, as it failed to present 
the whole rule of faith which God had revealed to the church. 
But that no such defect existed in their sacred library, was made 
to appear from the silence of our Saviour, who nowhere insinu- 
ates that their standard of faith was incomplete, and, what is still 
more conclusive, from his recorded approbation of the Jewish 



176 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

canon just as it stood. Their canon, then, could not possibly 
have been defective, and, therefore, the Apocrypha could not 
possibly have been inspired. The leading proposition of my 
argument was of that peculiar species in which the destruction 
or removal of the consequent is, by logical necessity, the destruc- 
tion or removal of the antecedent. The only points, therefore, 
in which the schoolmen would have informed you, this argu- 
ment could have been successfully assailed, were in the connec- 
tion of the two propositions which constitute the hypothesis on 
which it rests, or the validity of the process by which the conse- 
quent was denied. To give a complete and satisfactory refuta- 
tion, you would be required to show, either that the rejection of 
the Apocrypha from the canon of the Jews, though written 
by inspiration of God, did not render it defective, or that the 
canon was not sanctioned as complete by Jesus Christ and his 
apostles. 

As to the first, you have entirely mistaken the point of my 
argument, in supposing that it turned essentially upon the proof 
of moral delinquency in the Jews in excluding the Apocrypha 
from their sacred library. It is true, sir, that I cannot conceive 
how the writers of those books could possibly have been prophets , 
and yet no evidence of the fact be made to appear until centu- 
ries after they were dead. If they had been sent of God as teach- 
ers to their own generation, or to generations which were then 
unborn, some credentials of their divine commission would seem 
to be essential. They would either have been charged, with the 
power of performing wonders which none could achieve unless 
God were with him, or their heavenly vocation would have been 
attested by those who were known to be possessed of the Holy 
Ghost. There would surely have been some evidence, enough to 
constitute an adequate foundation of faith, that these writers were 
messengers of God, declaring the things which they had received 
from him. In conformity with the old logical maxim " de non 
existentibus et non appareniibus eadem est ratio" they might 
just as well not be inspired at all, as not be able to authenticate 
the fact. Unproved inspiration is to the reader no inspiration. 
Hence I did not regard it as a violent assumption, that if these 
men were really inspired, there must have existed satisfactory 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 177 

evidence of their divine illumination. You yourself have told us 
that " when Almighty God designed to inspire the works con- 
tained in the Holy Scriptures, he intended they should be held 
and believed to be inspired.'' Accordingly, sir, the authors of 
the Apocrypha must have presented to their cotemporaries such 
attestations of their commission from heaven as to have rendered 
obedience imperative, and faith indispensable. The Jews, there- 
fore, in rejecting their productions from the sacred canon, must 
have resisted the authority of God, and, in pronouncing them 
not to be inspired, must have been guilty of a flagrant fraud. 

The charge of fraud, however, which, of course, is hypotheti- 
cally made, is only incidentally introduced, and does not consti- 
tute, as in your reply you seem to have supposed, the essence of 
the argument. It was urged chiefly for the purpose of setting in 
a strong light, the moral necessity, which to my mind seemed to 
rest upon the Saviour, of vindicating the authority of these 
books, if, as you pretend, they were really the word of God. 

The real difficulty which the Romanist is required to explain 
is, how a document could be perfect and complete, when one 
fifth of its pages were actually omitted. Every book which God 
had given to the Jews, through the divine inspiration of his 
prophets, was entitled to be a part of their rule of faith ; and a 
complete collection of such books would constitute their canon, 
or entire rule of faith. Now, if the Apocrypha w T ere inspired 
productions, even Trent being witness, they were canonical, and, 
therefore, their presence was indispensably essential to the integ- 
rity of the canon. They were a part of the rule which God had 
given, and yet our Saviour treats the rule as perfect when it is 
miserably cheated of its fair proportions — -that is, upon this new 
system of papal mathematics, some of the parts are made equal to 
the w r hole. Such, sir, is the substance of the argument which 
you were required to answer. Every step was so plainly stated 
in my original essay, that I do not see how you failed to under- 
stand it. Now, sir, what is your answer? To what you con- 
ceive to be the leading proposition of my argument, you have 
nothing to reply but that the Jews might possibly have been ig- 
norant of the supernatural character of the books, or that no 
public tribunal existed, possessed of legitimate authority to intro- 

9 



178 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

duce them into the canon.* Your answer consists, in other 
words, of nothing more nor less than a pitiful defence of the hon- 
esty of the Jews! The ancient people of God were guilty of no 
fraud, in rejecting a host of canonical books because they had 
not the means of ascertaining that the books were inspired ! 
They were not to blame. God had furnished them with no satis- 
factory proofs that the Apocryphal authors were his prophets, 
and, therefore, they were not at liberty to treat their composi- 
tions as clothed with divine authority ! Your answer, sir, is such 
a wonderful specimen of reasoning, that you must excuse me for 
presenting it and my argument in the form of conditional syllo- 
gisms. My argument was, if the Apocrypha were inspired, the 
canon of the Jews was defective, but the canon of the Jews was 
not defective, therefore the Apocrypha were not inspired. Now 
the reader will observe that the validity of the argument does 
not depend upon the causes which induced the Jews to exclude 
the Apocrypha, but simply upon the fact, that they were exclud- 
ed. The causes might have been ignorance or fraud ; as I inti- 
mated in the original essay, the fact is all that is essential. 
Your answer is : If there is not satisfactory evidence that a book 
is inspired, there is no fraud in excluding it from the canon. 
There was not satisfactory evidence that the Apocrypha were 
inspired, therefore there was no fraud in excluding them from 
the canon. What now is the conclusion of this resistless logic? 
What end is answered, or what point is gained ? It follows, 
we are told> for we have to receive it on authority, that my " ar- 
gument is valueless and crumbles under its own irresistible 
weight.' , 

Unquestionably, sir, your readers must admit your unrivalled 
ability in reasoning, and I have no doubt the unanimous voice of 
posterity will accord to your extraordinary skill, a distinction 
hardly inferior to his who concentrated all the powers of his mind 

* " With these prefatory observations, I take up your argument as simply 
stated above, and meet it by answering, that when the Jewish synagogue did 
not admit those works into the canon, it was because of the want of proof of 
their inspiration, and perhaps want of authority to amend an already duly es- 
tablished canon, and that, therefore, they were not. guilty of the heinous sin you 
lay at their door." — Letter II. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 179 

upon the recondite process of extracting sunbeams from cucum- 
bers. You exhibit the tact of a practised logician in evading 
the point of my argument, and like an artful pupil, when the 
question proposed by the master is too hard, you answer another. 

You are aware, sir, that the very existence of your cause de- 
pends upon the truth of my consequent, and accordingly what- 
ever of reasoning there is in your essay, is devoted to the proofs 
by which my minor proposition was established. You deny, in 
other words, that Jesus Christ or his Apostles ever treated the 
Jewish canon as possessed of divine authority, or even referred 
to it at all. In refuting this extravagant assertion, I must cor- 
rect a series of errors, (into one of which you were led by Du 
Pin,) which tinge your whole performance, and which, when 
once detected, leave in a pitiable plight, nine-tenths of your sec- 
ond epistle. Your fundamental error consists in your restricted 
application of the term canon to a mere catalogue or list. The 
common metaphorical meaning of the Greek word kanon, as I 
have already had occasion to remark, is a rule or measure. In 
this sense it is used by the classical writers of antiquity, as well 
as by the great Apostle of the Gentiles. The subordinate mean- 
ings which we find attached to it in Suicer and Du Fresne may 
be easily deduced from its original application to a rule or 
measure. 

In the early ecclesiastical writers, it is sometimes employed, 
as Eichhorn properly observes, to designate simply a book, and 
particularly a book that served in general for the use of the 
church. The collection of hymns which was to be sung on fes- 
tivals, and the list of members who were connected with the 
church, received alike this common appellation. Again it was 
applied to the approved catalogue of books, that might be read 
in the public assemblies of the faithful, for instruction and edifi- 
cation ; and in modern times it is used to designate those in- 
spired writings which constitute the rule of faith.* The Scrip- 
tures, therefore, are said to be canonical, not because their various 
books are numbered in a list, or digested into any particular 
order, but because they are authoritative standards of divine truth; 

* Eichhorn's Einleitung, vol. i. cap. 1, § 15, pp. 102-3, The text is almost 
a literal translation of the passage. 



180 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

and the whole collection of sacred writings is called by pre-emi- 
nence, the canon, not because it is a collection, but because, in 
embodied form, it presents the entire rule of faith* It is inspi- 
ration, therefore, and that alone which entitles a book to be re- 
garded as canonical, because it is inspiration alone that invests 
it with authority to command our faith. If there were but one 
inspired book on the face of the earth, that book would be the 
cation — though it would be perfectly absurd to talk of a catalogue 
or list of one book. Accordingly, the distinguished German 
critic to whom I have already referred treats canonical and in- 
spired as synonymous terms. The Jews, it is important to 
state, did not apply the term canon to the collection of their 
sacred writings. They described the books themselves in terms 

* " The infinitely good God, having favored mankind with a revelation of 
his will, has thereby obliged all those who are blessed with the knowledge 
thereof, to regard it as the unerring rule of their faith and practice. Under this 
character, the Prophets, Apostles, and other writers of the sacred books, pub- 
lished and delivered them to the world ; and on this account they were dignified 
above all others with the titles of the canon and the canonical. The word ca- 
non is originally Greek, and did, in that language, as well as in the Latin after- 
wards, commonly denote that which was a rule or standard, by which other 
things were to he examined and judged. And inasmuch as the books of in- 
spiration contained the most remarkable rules, and the most important direc- 
tions of all others, the collection of them in time obtained the name of the 
canon, and each book was called canonical." — Jones' new and full Method for 
settling the Canon, &c. pt. 1, c. 1, p. 19, vol. i. 

See also Lardner's Supple, chap. 1, § 3, vol. v. p. 257 of Works. See also 
Chalmers' Evidences of Christianity, Book iv. chap. 1. Owen on Hebrews, Ex- 
ercit. i. § 2. That the definition which has been given in the text is abundantly 
confirmed by approved Papal authorities, the following extracts will place be- 
yond question. Ferus says — Scriptura dicitur canonica, id est, regularis, quia 
a Deo nobis data vitas et veritatis regula, qua omnia probamus et juxta quam 
vivamus. Jacobus Andradius says — Minime sibi displicere eorum sententiam, 
qui canonicos ideo appellari dicunt (Scripturse) libros quia pietatis et fidei etre- 
ligionis canonem, hoc est, regulam atque normam e coelis summo Dei beneficio 
ad nos delatam continent amplissimam. Nam cum omnipotentis Dei incorrup- 
tissima et integerrima voluntas humanarum esse debeat actionum et voluntatum 
norma : merito sana a canone et regula nomen accipere ii codices debuere, qui- 
bus Divina mysteria atque voluntas comprehensa. And Bellarmin, whom Ray- 
nold styles the Prince of Jesuits, affirms — Remnitium recte deduxisse ex Augus- 
tino, libros sacros Scriptural ideo dictos canonicos, quod sint instar regular. 
These extracts maybe found in Raynol. Censura. vol. i. p. 61. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 181 

expressive of their divine origin — arranged them in convenient 
general divisions, but did not confine themselves to any one 
specific enumeration. The books were computed indiscrimi- 
nately so as to suit the number of letters either in the Hebrew or 
Greek alphabets. The Jews knew nothing of the magic of a 
list. Philo and Josephus, for instance, never speak of the canon 
— but of the " compositions of their prophets " — their " sacred 
books" — " the oracles of God/' using such terms as denoted in- 
spiration. This was the only canonical authority of which they 
dreamed. This it was that distinguished their books from the 
works of the Gentiles, and exalted their faith above the deduc- 
tions of a fallible philosophy. If, then, canonical and inspired, 
as applied to the Scriptures, are synonymous terms, to insert 
a book in the canon, is simply to be convinced of its divine inspi- 
ration. The very evidence which proves it to come from God, 
makes it canonical. In other words, the proofs of inspiration 
and the proofs of canonical authority are one and the same thing. 
Hence instead of requiring some great and imposing assembly, 
like the cheneseth hagadolah of the Jews, or your own favorite 
Council of Trent, to settle the canon of Scripture, it is a work 
which every one must achieve for himself. The external proofs 
of inspiration, which consist in the signs of an apostle or a 
prophet, found either in the writer himself, or some one com- 
missioned to vouch for his production, are as easy and obvious 
as the external proof that any body of men are supernaturally 
guarded from error.* 

The contemporaries of Moses would know, from the miracu- 
lous credentials by which his commission was sustained, that his 
compositions were the supernatural dictates of God. They 
would consequently be a canon to his countrymen. As other 
prophets successively arose, their instructions, supported by simi- 

* " The inspiration of a writer," says Jahn, " can only be proved by Divine 
testimony. Nevertheless nothing more can be required than that a man who 
has proved his Divine miracles or prophecies should assert that the book or 
books in question are free from error." Introduct. O. T. cap. 2, p. 35, Turner's 
Translation. 

The reader will find this subject very clearly presented in Sermon xxiii. of 
Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures. 



182 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

lar credentials, would receive a similar distinction. The canon 
in this way would be gradually enlarged. Writers might be 
found who gave no external proofs themselves that they wrote as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and yet their writings might 
be authenticated by those who were unquestionably possessed of 
the prophetic spirit, and on this account these compositions 
would also be added to the existing canon. We read in the 
Scriptures that " all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew 
that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord." (1 
Sam. iv. 20.) How did they know it? There was no great 
synagogue to publish the fact or authenticate its truth. There 
was no great council to settle the matter by an infallible canon 
— but there was something better and higher: "The Lord was 
with him," and attested by miracles the supernatural character 
of his servant. Now precisely in the same way could the claims 
of every other prophet be established ; and the evidences of divine 
inspiration be speedily and extensively diffused. The sacred 
books, circulated among the people, as well as preserved in 
the Library of the Temple* by the Priests, would have every 
moral protection from corruption, forgery, or frauds. The inno- 
vations of the Priests would be speedily detected by the people, 
and the changes of the people just as readily exposed by the 
Priests. In the multitude of copies, as in the multitude of coun- 
sellors, there would be safety. t To this must be added the 
sleepless providence of God, which would preserve his word, 
which he hath exalted above every other manifestation of his 
name,, amid all the assaults of its enemies, and transmit it to 
future generations unimpaired by the fires of persecution, as the 
burning bush was protected from the flame.f 

* The existence of such a Temple Library will hardly be disputed by any 
sober critic. Traces of it may be found before the captivity in Deut. xxxi. 26, 
Joshua xxiv. 26, 1 Samuel x. 25. After the captivity, the evidence is com- 
plete. Josephus Antiq. 1. iii. c. i. § 7 ; 1. v. c. i. § 17. De Bello. Jud. 1. vii. c. 
5, § 5. See also Eichhorn Einleit. vol. i. §3. 

t This subject is ably discussed by Abbadie in a short compass. See 
Christ. Relig. vol. i. §3, c. 6. 

I Upon the manner in which the canon was gradually formed, and for a full 
and satisfactory explanation of the doubts which existed in the primitive church 
in reference to some of the books of the New Testament, see Lancaster's Bamp- 
ton Lectures. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 183 

It is a favorite scheme of the papists to represent the settling 
of the Canon as a work of gigantic toil and formidable mystery. 
It evidently, however, reduces itself to a simple question of fact 
— what books were written by men whose claims to inspiration 
were either directly or remotely established by miracles? It is 
a question, therefore, of no more difficulty than the authenticity 
of the sacred books. To illustrate the matter in the case of the 
New Testament. The churches that received the Epistles from 
Paul could have had no doubts of their canonical authority, be- 
cause they knew that the Apostle was supernaturally inspired as 
a teacher of the faith. He produced in abundance the signs of 
an apostle. So also the writings of the other apostles would be 
recognized by their cotemporary brethren as the Word of the 
Lord. The hooks actually written by the Apostles, or approved 
by their sanction, would be known by having witnesses of the 
fact. The historical proofs of this fact, that is, the testimony of 
credible witnesses, would be sufficient, in all future time, to attest 
the inspiration of any given work. If a man, for example, in the 
third century, is doubtful of the Epistle to the Romans, all that 
is necessary to settle his mind is to convince him that Paul actu- 
ally wrote it. This being done, its inspiration follows as a mat- 
ter of course. If a book, on the other hand, which pretended to 
be inspired, could produce no adequate proofs of apostolic origin 
or apostolic sanction, its claims would have to be rejected, unless 
its author could exhibit, in his own person, the signs of a heavenly 
messenger. The congregations in possession of inspired records 
were accustomed, as we gather from the apostles themselves, to 
transmit their treasures to the rest of their brethren, so that, in 
process of time, this free circulation of the sacred books would 
put them in the hands of all the portions of the church ; and as 
each church became satisfied of their apostolic origin, it received 
them likewise as canonical and divine, and, in this way, a com- 
mon canon was gradually settled. The idea that a council, or 
any mere ecclesiastical body, could settle the canon, is perfectly 
preposterous. To settle the canon, is to settle the inspiration of 
the sacred books — to settle the inspiration of the sacred books 
is to prove that they were written by divine prophets — and to 
prove this fact, is to prove either that the prophets themselves 



184 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

established their pretensions by miraculous achievements, or were 
sanctioned by those who were already in possession of supernat- 
ural credentials. Now what can a council do in a matter of this 
sort, but give the testimony of the men who compose it? Its 
authority as a council is nothing — it may be entitled to defer- 
erence and respect as embodying the testimony of credible wit- 
nesses. Every thing, however, will depend upon the honesty, 
accuracy, fidelity, and opportunities of the individual members 
who constitute the Synod. 

Having now shown what a canon is, how a book is deter- 
mined to be canonical, and how the canon was gradually col- 
lected, little need be said in refutation of your extravagant ac- 
count of the origin and settlement of the canon of the Jews. 

1 could have predicted beforehand, from your known parti- 
ality for Synods and Councils, that you would have found in the 
great synagogue of Ezra, an adequate tribunal for adjusting the 
rule of faith. You would never, at least, have rested in your in- 
quiries, until you had met with some body of men in whose deci- 
sion your papal proclivity to confide in the authority of man, 
might be humored or indulged. As to the wolf in the fable, no 
possible combination of letters could be made to spell any thing 
but agnus, so your inherent love for a Council would lead you to 
embrace any floating tradition by which you could construct a 
plausible story, that such a tribunal had settled the canon of the 
Jews. But, sir, where is the proof that this great synagogue ever 
existed ? The first notice which we have of it, is contained in the 
Talmud, a book which began about^e hundred years after this 
synagogue is said to have perished. You are more modest, how- 
ever, than some of your predecessors. Genebrard, not content, 
like yourself, with a single Council, has fabricated two other 
Synods to complete the work which Ezra had begun.* By one 
of these imaginary bodies the books of Tobias and Ecclesias- 
ticus were added to the canon, and by the other, the remaining 
works of the Apocrypha. The great synagogue, which you have 
endorsed, was a regular ecclesiastical body, in which might be dis- 
cerned, to use your own words, " a general council of the churchy 

* Hettinger, Thesaur. Phil. lib. i. c. i. quest. 1. p. 110. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 185 

in the old laiv, claiming and exercising by the authority of God 
the power of teaching the faithful what were the inspired books" 
Beyond the traditions of the Rabbins, what evidence are you able 
to produce, that a body, so evidently extraordinary as this is re- 
ported to have been, is any thing more than a fiction 1 You are 
probably aware, sir, that Jahn pronounces the story to be a fable, 
in which he is confirmed by what in a question of literary criti- 
cism is still higher authority, the opinion of Eichhorn. # We are 
not wanting in Jewish writers from the period of Ezra, to the 
advent of Christ, and the compilation of the Talmud, and it is 
certainly astonishing, if the synagogue had been a historical 
entity of so much importance as the traditions of the Rabbins 
ascribe to it, that some authentic notice has not been taken of 
its history, organization, and proceedings. How, sir, will you 
explain this wonderful phenomenon 1 Then, again, the one hun- 
dren and twenty men who composed this assembly, are said all 
to have nourished at the same time, and so Daniel and Simon 
the Just are made cotemporaries, although there could have been, 
according to Prideaux, little less than two hundred and fifty years 
between them. The whole story is so ridiculous and absurd as 
to carry the stamp of falsehood upon its face. It no doubt arose 
from the fact that Ezra was assisted in restoring the constitution 
of the Jewish state, and publishing a correct edition of the Scrip- 
tures, (of the canon as already existing,) by the " principal 
elders, who lived in a continual succession from the first return 

* The Jews attribute the establishment of their canon, to what they call 
the Great Synagogue, which during more than two hundred years, from Zerub- 
babel down to Simon the Just, was composed of the prophets and most eminent 
men of the nation. But the whole story respecting this synagogue, which first 
occurs in the Talmud, is utterly unworthy of credit. It is evidently a fictitious 
representation of the historic truth, that the men who are said to have consti- 
tuted the synagogue, were chiefly instrumental in the new regulation of the 
state, and in the constitution of the Jewish church, and consequently, in the col- 
lecting and fixing the holy books upon which this constitution was established." 
— Jahn's Introd., Turner's Trans, p. 45. 

See also Eichhorn's Einleit. vol. i. § 5. An account of this great synagogue 
may be found in Bartolocci Bibliotheca Rabbinica, vol. iv. p. 2, on the word 
" Cheneseth Hagadolah " Buxtorf Tiberias, c. x. xi. Leusden, Philol. Heb. 
Dissert, ix. §4, p. 73. 

9* 



186 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

of the Jews after the Babylonish captivity, to the death of Simon 
the Just."* That Ezra could not have settled the canon of 
Scripture, is clear from the fact, that most of the books already 
existed, and were known to be the compositions of prophets. 
There is no evidence that he furnished additional proof of the 
inspiration of Moses, David, or Isaiah, and yet this he must have 
done if he made them canonical. f The truth is, he did nothing 
more in reference to existing books than discharge the duties of 
a critical editor. His labors were precisely of the same hind as 
those of Griesbach, Knapp, and Mill. He might have been 
guided by inspiration in executing these functions, for he was 
confessedly an inspired man, but the ancient books which he 
published were just as canonical before he was born, as they were 
after he was dead. 

" What authority," you state with ineffable simplicity, " they 
(the Jews) thought necessary and sufficient to amend the canon, 
I have never met laid down by any of them. Nor do they treat 
of the evidence sufficient to establish the inspiration of a book." 
The authority, it is plain, is the evidence of inspiration, and that, 
in its external division, is the exhibition of miraculous creden- 
tials. Whoever claimed to be inspired, and sustained his pre- 
tensions by signs and wonders, which none could do unless God 
were with him, was in fact inspired, and whatever he wrote 
under the influence of inspiration, belonged of necessity to the 
canon.\ 

* In addition to the authority of Jahn, see also Prideaux, vol. i. p. 359. 
Knapp's Lectures, vol. i. art. i. §4, p. 81. 

t " But the great work of Ezra, was his collecting together and setting forth 
a correct edition of the Holy Scriptures, which he labored much in, and went a 
great way in the perfecting of it. This both Christians and Jews give him the 
honor of, and many of the ancient Fathers attribute more to him, in this parti- 
cular, than the Jews themselves. For they hold that all the Scriptures were 
lost and destroyed in the Babylonish captivity, and that Ezra restored them ail 
again by Divine inspiration. Thus saith Irenaeus, and thus say Tertullian, 
Clemens Alexandrinus, Basil, and others. But they had no other foundation 
for it, than that fabulous relation which we have of it in the 14th chapter of the 
second Apocryphal book of Esdras, a book too absurd for the Romanists them- 
selves to receive into their canon." — Prideaux, vol. i. p. 368. 

X " In the ense of a person, claiming to be commissioned with a message 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 18? 

Your distinction, accordingly, between not inserting a book 
really inspired in a canon, and rejecting it from a canon through 
defect of proof or want of authority, is wholly gratuitous and ab- 
surd. As the only way in which a book can be inserted into the 
canon, is to acknowledge its Divine authority as a rule of faith ; 
that is, to receive it as inspired, so the only way of rejecting it, 
is to deny or not be convinced of its inspiration. A book can- 
not be rejected after its inspiration is established ; we may refuse 
to obey its instructions, but if we know it to be inspired, it must 
be regarded as speaking with authority. "Whether we hear, or 
whether we forbear, it still is entitled to be considered as a rule. 
Those that would not submit to the government of Christ, were 
still treated and punished as his subjects. His right of dominion 
was not at all impaired by their disobedience. 

You are quite mistaken, therefore, in supposing that the 
charge of rejecting the Apocrypha from the canon cannot be 
sustained against the Jews, unless they had proof that these 

from God, the only proof which ought to be admitted is miraculous attestation 
of some sort. It should be required that either the person himself should work 
a miracle, or that a miracle should be so wrought in connection with his minis- 
try, as to remove all doubt of its reference to him and his message. The mir- 
acle, in these cases, is, in fact, a specimen of that violation of the ordinary 
course of nature which the person inspired is asserting to have taken place in 
his appointment and ministry ; and corresponds to the exhibition of specimens 
and experiments which we should require of a geologist, mineralogist, or chem- 
ist, if he asserted his discovery of any natural phenomena, especially of any at 
variance with received theories." — Hinds on Inspiration, pp. 9, 10. " The 
Bible is said to be inspired in no other sense than the government of the Is- 
raelites might be termed inspired — that is, the persons who wrote the Bible, 
and those who were appointed to govern God's people of old, were divinely 
commissioned and miraculously qualified, as far as was needful, for their respec- 
tive employments. This being so, the inspiration of Scripture is not, by the 
strict rule of division, opposed to the inspiration of persons, but forms one branch 
of that multifarious ministry in which those persons were engaged. *. 

The proof requisite for establishing the divine authority of any writings, when, 
as in the case of the Bible, the testimonial miracles of the authors can be no 
longer witnessed, is either 1, That some miracle be implied in the authorship, 
or 2, That there be satisfactory testimony that the writers were persons who 
performed miracles, or 3, That there be satisfactory testimony that the writings 
were recognised as works of inspiration by persons who must have been assured 
of this on the evidence of miracles." — Ibid. p. 27. 28. 



188 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

books were inspired, and possessed a tribunal whose function it 
was to insert them into the canon. They were rejected from the 
canon, from the very nature of the case, if they were not believed 
to be inspired* 

* I find that Raynold in his admirable work, Censura Librorum Apocry- 
phorum, has taken the same view. In rebutting the very distinction of A. P. F. 
which, in the days of this great scholar, was urged by Canus and Sixtus Senen- 
sis, he thus proceeds : " Concidit ergo alteram exceptionis Sixti membrum : 
nunc ad alteram, quod ita habet : Etsi non receperunt in canonem, tamen 
non rejecerunt ; aliud enim ncn recipere, aliud rejicere. At idem plane 
est ad id de quo agimus, non accipere et rejicere. Nam mutemus verba prioris 
ratiocinationis nostrae, et dicamus: Si quae unquam ecclesia verum et cerium 
testimonium dare potuit de Libris canonicis Sacrae Scripturae, de Libris 
certe Veteris Testamenti vetus Ecclesia Judaica potuit. At ea hos, qui sunt 
in controversia, libros in canonem non recepit. Ergo recipiendi non sunt. 
Quid jam lucratus est Canus ? Nobis satis probasse non esse recipiendo, quod 
enim Christus apud Matthaeum dicit, qui vos recipit, me recipit, id apud 
Lucam sic effertur, qui vos rejicit, me rejicit, et alibi qui non colligit mecum 
spargit : hie non recipi est rejici, ut in virtutis via regreditur, quicunque non 
progreditur, in Apocalypsi, finis erunt canes, et venefici, et scortatores, et 
homicidcB, et idolatrcB, et quisquis amat, et committit mendacium. Quid his 
proderit non rejici, si non recipiantur? Verum est ista distinctio adhuc plenius 
refutetur, ego non modo hos receptos, hos libros sed et rejectos fuisse docebo. 
Quid est enim rejicere, nisi negare esse canonicos ? Quid non recipere, quam 
(ut levius in Cani gratiam interpreter) dubitare num sint recipiendi ]" — Cens. 
Lib. Ap. vol. i. p. 86. Pra elect ix. 

M One member of the exception of Sixtus has fallen ; now for the other, 
which is this ; * although they (the Jews) did not receive these books into the 
canon,^they did not reject them : — not to receive and to reject, are different 
things. They are evidently the same, however, in the matter of which we 
are treating. For let us change the form of expressing our first argument, and 
say if any Church could give a true and certain testimony concerning the 
canonical books of Holy Scripture, particularly the books of the Old Testament, 
it was the ancient Church of the Jews. But this Church did not receive into 
its canon the disputed books, therefore they ought not to be received. What, 
now, has Canus gained ? It is enough, to prove that they ought not to be 
received. Christ, in Matthew, says, whoso receiveth you, receiveth me ; the 
same idea is expressed in Luke, whoso rejecteth you, rejecteth me, and else- 
where, he that ga there th not with me, seattereth. In these passages, not to 
be received and to be rejected, are the same thing, as he who goes backward 
in the path of virtue does not go forward ; and, as in the Apocalypse, without 
are dogs, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and murderers, and idolaters, and who- 
soever loveth and maketh a lie. What will it profit these not to be rejected if 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 189 

All your blunders upon this subject have arisen from the am- 
biguity of the word canon, and from the preposterous idea, that 
there is something peculiarly mysterious and profound in making 
a collection of sacred works. It seems never to have entered 
your head that there is nothing more wonderful or abstruse in 
gathering together the accredited writings of the Holy Ghost, 
than in making a collection of the acknowledged publications of 
a human author. The difficulty of the subject is not in the col- 
lection, but in the proof that the separate pieces, in either case, 
are genuine. Inspiration is the mark of a genuine work of the 
Spirit, and miracles are the infallible marks of inspiration. 

These preliminary suggestions in reference to the nature and 
authority of the canon, furnish the keys to a satisfactory solution 
of all your difficulties. Your refutation of the minor proposi- 
tions of my argument, will be found so essentially wanting in 
every element of strength, that it may safely be pronounced as 
worthless as you have represented my own to be, and will assur- 
edly " crumble under its own irresistible weight." 



LETTER XII. 



Our Saviour approved the Jewish canon and treated it as complete. Sadducees vindicated 
from the charge of rejecting all the Old Testament but the Pentateuch. The real point 
which Papists must prove, in order to establish the inspiration f the Apocrypha. 

That the Jewish canon was not defective, was made to ap- 
pear from the silence of Christ, in reference to any omission 
impairing its integrity ; from His recorded conversations, in 
which he evidently sanctioned it as complete ; and from the in- 
structions of His apostles, who spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost. 

they are not received ] But that this distinction may be yet more fully re- 
fated, I will not only show that these books were not received, but that they 
were positively rejected. For what is it to reject but to deny that they are 
canonical? And what not to receive, but to doubt whether they should be 

received V 



191) ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Your reply to these several distinct proofs of ray minor pro- 
position, I shall now examine in the order which seems to me 
to be most convenient for fully presenting the subject. 

First, then, you deny that our Saviour, or His apostles, ever 
referred to the canon of the Jews at all, and, in order to give 
some semblance of truth to this gross and palpable falsehood, 
you avail yourself of the ambiguity of a term, and endeavor to 
" embosk in the dark, bushy, and tangled forest" of verbal 
technicalities. * It is freely conceded that our Saviour nowhere 
enumerates, by their specific names or titles, all the books which 
compose the Jewish Scriptures. He never pretended, so far as 
it appears from the sacred records, to give an accurate list or for- 
mal catalogue of all the inspired writings which the Jews received 
as the infallible standard of supernatural truth. But what is 
this to the point ? Even if we take canon in your own arbitrary 
sense of it, you have grossly failed to sustain your monstrous hy- 
pothesis. It is certainly one thing to refer to a canon, and quite 
a different thing to enumerate all the books which compose it. 
Such general terms as the Works of Homer, the Works of Plato, 
or the Works of Cicero, evidently embrace a complete collection 
of their various performances ; and to refer to them under these 
titles, is to refer to the catalogue or list of their literary labors. 
If the question were asked, what were the works of Homer, 
could it be answered in any other way than by enumerating 
the specific books of which he was supposed to be the author ? 

Now if the Jews applied any general and comprehensive titles 
to the whole body of their sacred writings, and if our Saviour 
refered to these documents, under those titles, he referred, un- 
questionably, to the catalogue or list of their divine composi- 
tions, that is, in your own sense, he referred unquestionably to the 

* " You have entirely forgotten or omitted to allege, or even by note to 
refer to a single passage of the New Testament, wherein the Saviour or the 
Apostles speak at all of the canon of the Jews. They refer to the Scriptures 
generally, and to particular books, they quote from them, but there is not in 
the whole New Testament a single passage showing that Christ and His 
Apostles ever referred to the canon catalogue or list of inspired books held 
among the Jews, much less treated that catalogue as complete and containing 
the whole of God's revelation as far as then made. — Letter II 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 191 

# 

canon of his countrymen. Have you yet to learn, sir, that the 
phrases " Scriptures," " Holy Scriptures," " Sacred Books," and 
such like expressions, which are continually occurring in Philo 
and Josephus, were the common and familiar designations of 
those works which were believed to have proceeded from the 
Spirit of God ?* Have you further to learn that the division of 
their sacred books into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and 
the rest of the books, was an ancient classification It Certainly, 
sir, there is as much evidence of these facts, as of the existence 
of an infallible " council of the church in the old law," in the 
days of Ezra. If, now, our Saviour or his apostles ever referred 
to the inspired documents of the Jewish faith, under the general 
and comprehensive title of the " Scriptures," or under the three- 
fold division of their books which ancient usage had sanctioned, 
he referred, beyond all question, to their canon, in the sense of a 
catalogue or list of their divine compositions. That they did 
refer, however, to the Scriptures generally, you yourself admit. 
How, then, can you deny the obvious conclusion, without main- 
taining that the general does not include the particulars, the 
whole is not composed of its parts ? Homer sometimes nodded ; 
and you, too, in a moment of unlucky forgetfulness, have virtually 
acknowledged that there can be a reference to a canon, when 
the name itself is not mentioned, and when there is no complete 
enumeration of the specific books which constitute the list. 
You have appealed to a writer, who, from the passage quoted, 
would evidently appear to be Flavius Josephus, though, in the 
plenitude of papal authority and sacerdotal learning, you have 
reversed his name, for the purpose of showing " what were the 
ideas of the Jews," on the subject of their national canon. 
What evidence have you, sir, that will not as clearly apply to 
the case of Christ and his apostles, that Josephus, in the cele- 

* Hottinger, Thesaur. Phil. lib. i. c. 2, § 3. Leusden, Phil. Heb. dissert, i. 
§ 1. Eichhorn, Einleit. c. i. § 6. Jahn, Introd. Prelim. Observ. § 1. 

t That this was an ancient division may be gathered from the fact that 
it appears to have been of long standing in the time of Jesus the Son of Sirach. 
We find it in his Prologue. See Leusden. Phil. Heb. Dissert, ii. § 1. Hot- 
tinger, Thesaur. Phil. lib. ii. c. i. § 1. Eichhorn, Einleit. c. i. § 6. Jahn, pt. i. 
§ 103. 



192 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

brated passage to which you allude, refers to the canon, since 
he only mentions the general division of the sacred books into 
three leading parts, and mentions the number, not the names of 
the works that belong to each division?* The same divisions 
are mentioned by our Saviour (Luke xxir. 44), " All things 
must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the 
Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me," and yet you deny 
that in this passage of Luke, or in any other passage of the New 
Testament, there is any reference at all to the canon of the Jews. 
I am at a loss to understand how a reference to a general classi- 
fication, when found in Josephus, should be a reference to the 
canon, but when found in the mouth of our Saviour, should be 
entirely different. It is vain to allege that because Josephus 
mentions the number of books in each department, that this is 
equivalent to the mention of a canon. The number of books 
may be gathered from the catalogue, but it is no more the cata- 
logue itself, than the general heads under which the list is 
arranged. If I should say that there are twenty thousand vol- 
umes in the library of the South Carolina College, would that 
be the same as a list of the books? If I should say that the 
books which it contains might be conveniently arranged under 
the four departments of Law, Divinity, Philosophy, and Belles 
Lettres, and that each department contained five thousand vol- 
umes, would that be equivalent to a catalogue of the Library ? 
It is perfectly plain, sir, that Josephus no more gives us a list of 
the sacred writings of the Jews, which, with you, is the only 

* This passage occurs in Josephus contra Ap. lib. i. § 8. It may be thus 
rendered : " For we have not innumerable books which contradict each other ; 
but only twenty-two, which comprise the history of all times past, and are justly 
held to be divine. Five of these books proceed from Moses ; they contain 
laws and accounts of the origin of men, and extend to his death. Accordingly 
they include not much less than a period of three thousand years. From the 
death of Moses to the death of Artaxerxes, who, after Xerxes, reigned over 
the Persians, the prophets who lived after Moses, have recorded, in thirteen 
books, what happend in their time. The other four books contain songs of 
praise to God, and rules of life for man. — Since Artaxerxes up to our time, 
every thing has been recorded ; but these writings are not held to be so worthy 
of credit as those written earlier, because after that time there was no regular 
succession of prophets !" 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 193 

way of referring to their canon, than Christ and his apostles, — 
and there is no line of argument by which you can show that 
he refers to the canon, in the passage which you have extracted 
from his works, that will not also show that Christ himself 
refers to it in the passage recorded by Luke. You yourself, 
then, being judge, your broad and unqualified assertions, that 
" there is not in the whole New Testament a single passage, 
showing that Christ and his apostles ever referred to the canon, 
catlaogue, or list of inspired books held among the Jews/' is a 
pure fabrication of the brain. — Your imagination was evidently 
commencing that grand process of unreal formations, which 
finally resulted in the stupendous creation of a " general council 
of the church in the Old Law, claiming and exercising, by the 
authority of God, the power of teaching the faithful what were 
the inspired books/' I tremble for history when your mind is 
in travail. Laboring mountains producer mouse, but laboring 
priests bring forth facts from the womb of fancy — are delivered 
of gods in the shape of bread, and produce Redeemers in the 
form of saints. 

If, upon your own hypothesis, that a canon and list of inspired 
books are synonymous terms, your position is grossly and palpa- 
bly false, how triumphant becomes its refutation upon the true 
view of the case, that the canon of the Jews was their authorita- 
tive standard of faith ! What Philo and Josephus denoted by 
the terms " Scriptures," " Holy Scriptures," " Sacred Books," 
" Oracles of God," and such like expressions, was precisely the 
same thing which is now denoted by the compendious appella- 
tion canon. This word was not, at that time, in use in reference 
to the sacred books; but in those connections in which we would 
naturally use it, they always employed some phraseology which 
indicated the divine authority of the books. All books which 
were written by prophets or inspired men belonged to the class 
of Holy Scriptures, and those which were destitute of any satisfac- 
tory claims to a supernatural origin were ranked in a different 
category. As then the Jews evidently meant by the Scriptures pre- 
cisely what we mean by the canon or canonical books, our Sa- 
viour's references, as also those of his apostles, to the Jewish 
rule of faith under this general designation, were references to 



194 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the national canon. Wherever the word occurs in allusion to 
the sacred books, the corresponding term canon may be safely 
substituted and not the slightest change will be made in the mean- 
ing. With these explanations I now proceed to show that our 
Saviour did quote, approve, and sanction as complete, the inspired 
rule of faith which the Jews in his own day professed to acknow- 
ledge.* 

1. First he appealed to it under its ancient division into three 
general departments, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, 
Luke xxiv. 44. This, according to Leusden, was the first general 
partition of the sacred books. What in this category is called 
Psalms, the first book of a class being put for the whole class, 
was subsequently denominated Hagiographa — the phrase employ- 
ed by the Jews (Ketubim) being less definite and precise. The 
books of this third division, as would appear from the term Ketu- 
bim itself, were usually described by a periphrasis, as there was 
no general name which exactly comprehended them all. Hence 
in the former Prologue of Jesus the grandson of Sirach, they are 
simply mentioned under the vague title of the " rest of the 
books." Josephus also applies to them a similar appellation. 
The Psalms being the first in order under the general class of 
Hagiographa, our Saviour in conformity with the Jewish method 
of citation, mentions them as including the rest of the Ketubim. f 
It appears, too, that Jesus was accustomed to introduce repeated 
allusions to the books of the Old Testament under a two-fold di- 
vision — which not unfrequently occurs in the remains of the Fa- 
thers — the Law and the Prophets.f (Matt. v. 17, vii. 12, xi. 13, 
xxii. 40. Luke xvi. 16.) 

Not only did Christ and his apostles appeal to the canon of 

* In my original essay, I made no special references to show that Christ 
and his Apostles had quoted and approved the Jewish canon, because I never 
dreamed that any human being would think of denying so plain a proposition. 
It appeared to me like proving that the sun shines at noonday. 

t The Psalms of our Saviour's arrangement and the Hagiographa of later 
classifications are evidently the same. There being no single word by Which 
all the books of this class could be denoted, led, necessarily, to a periphrastic 
description, or to the mention of a single book as a reference to the series. 

t Suicer on the word ypouprj, § 7. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 195 

the Jews in a general way, but they appealed to it as possessed 
of divine authority. They made a broad distinction between it 
and all the writings of man. Paul says expressly, in evident al- 
lusion to the sacred books of his nation, " All scripture is given 
by inspiration of God." (2 Tim. iii. 16.) 

Peter declares that " prophecy came not in old time by the 
will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost." Our Saviour refers the Jews to the Scrip- 
tures which they were in the habit of reading as containing the 
words of everlasting life, for a satisfactory defence of his own 
snpernatural commission. Then, again, particular passages are 
repeatedly introduced as theipsissima verba of the Holy Ghost.* 
These facts incontestably prove that the Jewish canon was sanc- 
tioned by Christ, approved by his apostles, and commended to 
the church as the lively oracles of God. 

The estimate which Christ and his apostles put upon the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament, may be gathered from the fact 
that they uniformly treat Christianity as only a development of 
Judaism. It was a new dispenation of an old religion. Hence, 
in their arguments with Jews and Gentiles, in their instructions 
to all classes and conditions of men, they refer to the Scriptures, 
the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, for a divine confirmation 
of all the doctrines which they taught. The New Testament is 
only an inspired exposition of the principles contained in the Old. 
Every doctrine which Christ or his Apostles announced may be 
found in the existing canon of their day. Whatever changes 
they made, or novelties they taught, respected the organization 
and not the essence of the church. Hence the primitive Chris- 
tians, even before a single gospel or epistle had been indited, 
had a written rule of faith. They were never for a moment, as 

* The following passages show the light in which the Jewish canon was 
held by the writers of the New Testament. I have before me a list of direct 
quotations made from the Old Testament by the writers of the New, amounting 
to about 272. Yet there is no reference to the Jewish canon ! 

Matt. xi. 13, xv. 3-6, xix. 2-6, xxii. 31-43, xxvi. 54. Luke xvi. 16,29,31, 
xviii. 31, xxiv. 25-27, 44-46. Mark vii. 9, 13. John v. 39, 46, x. 34. Acts 
iii. ]8, xxviii. 25. Rom. i. 2, iv. 2-24. Gal. iii. 8, 16. Heb. iii. 7, xii. 27. 
1 Pet.i. 11. 2Pet.i. 21. 



196 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the papists pretend, left to oral tradition for the doctrines of their 
creed. 

But the Jewish canon was also held to be complete. In the 
original essay this point was presented as a legitimate and obvi- 
ous inference from the silence of the Saviour in reference to any 
defects in the sacred library of his countrymen. Now the 
strength of this argument must depend on the strength of the 
presumption, that, if such defects in reality existed, the Messiah 
would have felt himsejf bound to correct and remove them. Ac- 
cording to the hypothesis of Rome one fifth of the revelation of 
God was deprived of that equal veneration and authority to which 
it was justly entitled with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. 
Now the question is, whether that great Prophet of the church, 
u who was clad with zeal as a cloak" — who came to magnify 
" the Law and make it honorable," and who expressly declared 
that he had " not refrained his lips " from speaking righteous- 
ness in the great congregation, nor concealed from it the truth 
and loving-kindness of the Lord ; the question is whether such a 
prophet would suffer so large a part of the light of revelation to 
be extinguished without uttering a single word in its defence. 
Upwards of fourteen hundred years before he was born, his Fa- 
ther had distinctly announced, u I will put my words in his mouth, 
and lie shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." He 
came then, not only as a Priest and King, but also as a teacher — 
a teacher of God's truth — and yet permitted a body of that truth 
almost equal in bulk to the whole New Testament to be " buried 
in the dust of death." If he raised no warning voice, no cry of 
expostulation — if he stood silent by when such violence was done 
to the sacred records of the faith, how could he say, " Thy law is 
within my heart, lo, I have not refrained my lips, Oh Lord, thou 
knowest "? The Jews had excluded the Apocrypha, either wil- 
fully or ignorantly — if wilfully, they were guilty of a fraud, and 
that fraud ought to have been rebuked — if ignorantly, they were 
involved in a great calamity, and their illustrious prophet would 
not have left them in their darkness and error. So that upon every 
view of the subject the silence of Christ is wholly unaccountable, 
if these books were really inspired. It becomes simple and nat- 
ural upon the supposition that they were merely human produc- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 197 

tions. He would have, in that case, no more occasion to mention 
them than to mention the writings of the Greek philosophers. 

Now, sir, what is your answer to this plain argument from 
the silence of Christ 1 Why, you tell us, in your third distinc- 
tion, that it is not so perfectly certain that Christ observed any 
such silence as I have attributed to him. You inform us — in 
conformity with the testimony of John, for that is the ouly pas- 
sage which bears upon the point — that Jesus did a great many 
things which are not recorded ; therefore he must also have said 
a great many things which have not been preserved. I confess 
that 1 do not exactly perceive the consequence. But let that 
pass. Let us admit that he may have said as well as done a 
great many things which have never been written, is it likely 
that the Apostles and Evangelists would have omitted what their 
master had taught in reference to a subject so vastly important as 
the very constitution of his church? No history perhaps records 
all the sayings and doings of the continental congress — but that 
certainly would not deserve the name of a history that should 
neglect to make the most distant reference to the Declaration of 
Independence 1 Whatever other things the sacred writers have 
passed in silence and neglect, we may feel perfectly certain that 
they have not concealed or suppressed the instructions of their 
master in regard to so fundamental a matter as the rule of faith. 
The very same arguments that render it improbable that our Sav- 
iour would have failed to correct the defects of the Jewish can- 
on, if any defects had existed, render it also improbable that his 
biographers would have neglected to record the substance, at 
least, of what he had taught upon the subject. If we grant, how- 
ever, that their silence is no proof of their master's silence, you 
have gained nothing.* You have only avoided one difficulty by 
plunging into another. You would have the silence of the Apos- 
tles and Evangelists to explain, instead of the silence of Christ. — 
For this and all other difficulties, however, you have a stereo- 
typed solution at hand. What Christ did not choose to do in per- 
son upon earth, and what his apostles failed to perform, however 
clearly within the compass of their sacred commission, may yet 
be accomplished by a standing tribunal — a general council of the 
church, like the fictitious synagogue of Ezra, " claiming and 



198 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

exercising, by the authority of God, the power of teaching the 
faithful what were the inspired works." But as every falsehood 
accumulates additions in its progress — vires acquirit eundo — so 
your infallible body possesses some larger powers in your second 
letter than it was represented to possess in your first. You have 
brought it so often before the public, and exposed it to view in 
such tattered apparel, that it has finally lost its modesty, and be- 
gins to speak more "swelling words of vanity" than it dared to 
utter at its first appearance. In your first letter, councils could 
do no more, on the head of doctrine, than merely declare and 
define what had always been the faith of the church. They pos- 
sessed no power to make new articles of faith, they could only an- 
nounce with infallible certainty what had always been the old. 
In your second letter, these councils rise a step higher, and be- 
come prophets themselves, intrusted with new revelations which 
neither Christ nor his Apostles had ever communicated to the 
church. It seems that it is a matter of no sort of consequence 
whether Christ or his Apostles in their own persons had ever tes- 
tified to the inspiration of the Apocrypha — that is, had ever 
taught that the Apocrypha were inspired — an infallible council 
could subsequently teach it for them. How? If Christ and his 
Apostles had never taught it, the members of the council could 
not receive it from tradition — they must therefore ascertain the 
fact by immediate revelation* What your councils will become 
next, it is impossible to augur — they already claim to be the 
voice of the Lord — they will perhaps aspire to be God himself. 
I shall add nothing here to what I have already said touching 
your pretensions to infallibility. My previous numbers are a full 
refutation of this stupendous folly. • 

You are extremely unfortunate in your attempt to refute 
from analogy my obvious inference from the silence of the Sa- 

* " Suppose those works inspired, as I contend they are, but not admitted 
at the Saviours time into the Jewish canon, it was not, strictly speaking, neces- 
sary that either Christ or his apostles should testify personally to their inspira- 
tion. If the Saviour established a body of men, who, by his authority, and 
under the guidance of his Holy Spirit of truth, were to decide that question, 
which, as I showed in Letter I, we are necessarily bound to admit, the decision 
of such a body at any subsequent period would be amply sufficient/' — Letter II. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED 199 

viour. You appeal to the case of the Sadducees and Samaritans, 
who, according to you, denied all the books of the Jewish canon, 
but the five books of Moses, and yet were not rebuked by the 
Saviour for their wicked infidelity. 

Now, sir, that the Sadducees denied the divine authority of 
the prophets and Ketubim, I think it will be difficult for you or 
any other man to prove. It has been supposed that because our 
Saviour refutes their skeptical opinions in regard to the resurrec- 
tion of the dead, by a passage extracted from the Pentateuch, 
therefore they denied the inspiration of any other books. But it 
will be seen, by inspecting the context, that they had drawn 
their cavils from a distinctive provision of the Jewish law. They 
had virtually asserted that the Pentateuch denied the resurrec- 
tion, since, in a given case, its peculiar requisitions, according 
to their view, would introduce confusion and discord into the 
future state. Their difficulties were met, by correcting their 
misapprehensions in regard to the nature of the future life, and 
by distinctly showing that Moses had taught the doctrine which 
they supposed he had condemned. Among the fathers, Origen, 
Tertullian, Jerome, and Athanasius, have endorsed this calumny 
upon the faith of the Sadducees It was first called in question 
by Drusius, and subsequently refuted with such triumphant suc- 
cess by Joseph Scaliger, that Bishop Bull pronounces his argu- 
ment to be decisive of the question. That must be a bad cause, 
in a matter of literary criticism, which such men as Scaliger, 
Spanheim, Pearson, Bull, Jortin, Waterland, and Eichhorn, to 
say nothing of Brucker, Buddaeus, and Basnage, unite to con- 
demn : and yet all these men are found arrayed against the pa- 
tristic opinion, that the Sadducees rejected the Prophets and the 
Psalms.* 

It is universally acknowledged that the Samaritans denied 
the divine authority of the whole Jewish canon, with the excep- 
tion of the Pentateuch, but it is not so clear that the Saviour 
failed to rebuke them. You are probably aware, sir, that distin- 
guished commentators, both in ancient and modern times, have 

* Brucker, vol. ii. p. 721. Pearson, Vindicat. Ignat. pt. 1, c. 7, p. 467. Bull, 
Harm. Apost. Diss. Post. 10, 14. 



200 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

regarded John iv. 22, as a pointed reproof of Samaritan infidel- 
ity ; and it was incumbent upon you to prove that this common 
interpretation was erroneous before you could confidently as- 
sume, that the whole matter was permitted to pass sub silentio 
by Christ. * Again, it was hardly necessary to rebuke the Sa- 
maritans, as our Saviour's notorious concurrence in the faith of 
the Jews was an open, public, and sufficient condemnation of the 
errors and defects of this remarkable people. 

The inconsistency of the various solutions which you have 
suggested to the palpable difficulty arising from the silence of 
Christ, affords an amusing illustration of human imbecility and 
folly. First, it was not so absolutely certain that Christ was 
silent, since he performed many signs and wonders, which have 
never been committed to written records. Then, again, he 
could afford to be silent, as he had established an infallible tri- 
bunal, abundantly competent to supply all his deficiencies, and 
teach the faithful to the end of time. In an analogous case, that 
of the Sadducees and Samaritans, he probably was silent, as 
there is no evidence whatever that he rebuked the former for a 
sin which they never committed, arid very strong evidence that 
he reproved the latter for an omission of which they were un- 
doubtedly guilty. So you seem to oscillate between a denial and 
admission of the silence of Christ. Like a man walking upon 
ice, you tread with wary steps, lest your next movement should 
ingulf you. Finally, however, after all your vibrations, you 
" screw your courage to the sticking place," and settle down in 
grim despair upon a probable solution, by which you seem deter- 
mined to abide. You stoutly deny that Christ was silent in the 
matter, and promise to prove, though papal promises are sel- 
dom redeemed, " that Christ and his apostles did take some 
steps, not indeed to insert those books in the Jewish canon, but 
to give them to the Christians as divinely inspired works. " 
Apart from the lying testimony of an infallible church, the only 
proof which you present, in your second letter, of this miserable 
fiction, is drawn from the assumption, that, in the New Testa- 

* Such is the interpretation put upon this passage by Ammonius, Grotius, 
Lampe, Tholuck, and others. Tholuck's comment is specially deserving of 
notice. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 201 

ment, quotations are made from the Apocryphal writers, and 
from the admitted fact, that these books were early embodied in 
the Septuagint. The first position you have entirely failed to 
substantiate. There is no proof whatever, that a single passage 
from any of the books of the Apocrypha, is introduced into the 
documents which compose the New Testament. The passage, 
Rom. xi. 34, which of all others seems to be most analogous to a 
corresponding text in the book of Wisdom, (ix. 31,) is confessed 
by several of the Fathers, Tertullian, Basil and Ambrose, as well 
as by modern authors of the papal sect, to have been borrowed 
from the canonical prophet Isaiah,* xl. 13. If, however, it could 
be proved that the Apocrypha were quoted by Christ and his 
apostles, this would not establish their divine inspiration, unless 
it could also be shown that every book quoted in the New Testa- 
ment, was, on that account, inspired. I can conceive of no 
other major proposition which would answer the ends of the 
argument. But surely, sir, you would not hazard a statement 
like this ! It is more than Trent would dare to assert, that the 
heathen poets, whose verses are found in the epistles of Paul, 
were holy men of Greece, who spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost. It is an old logical maxim that an argument which 
proves too much, proves in reality nothing. 

Your reasoning from the second fact is easily set aside. You 
proceed on the assumption, for which you quote the authority of 
Walton, that in the time of Christ and his apostles, the Septua- 
gint contained the Apocrypha.t You then infer, that " if those 



* See No. X. of this series of Letters. 

t I have seen no reason, since writing my original essay, to change the 
opinion which I then expressed, that the Septuagint, in the time of Christ, did 
not contain the Apocrypha. If these documents were in the hands of the apos- 
tles, why were they never quoted 1 How does it happen that not a single allu- 
sion is made to them, nor a single passage extracted from them 1 But the sub- 
ject is too unimportant to spend much time upon it. I shall just observe, that I 
am sustained in my opinion by Eichhorn, as well as Schmidius. The passage 
from Walton proves nothing as to the time when the union betwixt the Septua- 
gint and Apocrypha took place. A, P. F.'s eulogy upon Walton's competency 
to settle a question of this sort, is not a little amusing, since, probably, the most 
exceptionable part of his famous Prolegomena is in relation to the origin of the 

10 



202 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

books were uninspired, the Saviour and his apostles were cer- 
tainly bound positively to reject them." Now, as I have already 
shown from the very nature of the case, to insert a book into the 
canon is to receive it as inspired ; to reject a book is not to be 
persuaded or convinced of its divine inspiration, or to pronounce 
it uninspired. As there is no evidence that a single man, woman 
or child, in the whole land of Judea, looked upon the Apocrypha 
as inspired productions, what need was there that Christ should 
positively assert what no one thought of denying? His silence 
was conclusive proof that he acquiesced in the popular opinion. 
It was, beyond all controversy, the positive rejection, for which 
you so earnestly plead. 

You have admitted that the Jews had no satisfactory evidence 
that the Apocrypha were inspired ; that they were excluded from 
the Jewish canon, and, of course, a complete separation, as to 
authority, was made between them and the sacred books ! Every 
end was consequently answered which could have been effected 
by the most pointed denunciation of these books. There was no 
need for Christ to speak, unless he intended to add these works 
to the sacred canon. Then it would have been necessary to 
show the Jews their error in refusing to admit the divine author- 
ity of Tobit, Judith, and Wisdom. The truth is, you have been 
led into this foolish argument by the ambiguity of the sentence, 
that the Septuagint contained the Apocrypha. You evidently 
treat the phrase as conveying the idea, that whatever books were 
inserted in that version, were possessed of equal authority. The 
only meaning, however, which the words can consistently bear, 
is, that wherever there were copies of the Greek version of the 
Old Testament, there were also copies of the Greek documents 
which we now style the Apocrypha. They usually went to- 
gether, and that, for the purpose of presenting in regular series, 
the remarkable history of God's chosen people. In this way a 
complete collection was made of Jewish literature, inspired and 
uninspired. The line was clearly drawn between the divine and 
human ; but as they both met in the common point of Jewish 

Septuagint. He ought not to be read upon this point, without Hody at hand to 
correct his partiality for the fable of Aristaeus. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 203 

history, they were united together in one collection. Thus much 
might have been gathered from the famous passage of Josephus, 
which was evidently before your eyes. " We have not," says he, 
" innumerable books which contradict each other, but only 
twenty-two which comprise the history of all times past. " * * * 
" Since Artaxerxes, up to our time, every thing has been re- 
corded." In the eyes of Josephus, then, both the canonical and 
Apocryphal books contained the history of his nation, and there- 
fore, had a common quality, which might serve as a bond of union, 
but the difference between them lay in this : the twenty-two 
books were "justly held to be divine" — those composed since 
the time of Artaxerxes, " were not so worthy of credit, because, 
after that time, there was no regular succession of prophets" or 
inspired writers. Another circumstance which undoubtedly con- 
tributed in no small degree to the popularity of those works, was 
their singular adaptation to the religious spirit of the age. The 
Jews, like the papists, had obscured the revelation of God, and 
trusting in the vain traditions of man, had mistaken superstition 
for piety, and sentiment for grace Hence they would be likely 
to regard (particularly the Hellenist) these Apocryphal docu- 
ments with the same sort of veneration with which we now con- 
template the monuments of illustrious teachers of the truth. 

It is, certainly, no commendation of these books, to say that 
they were written with that subordinate degree of inspiration, 
which the Jews denominate the " daughter of the voice."* The 
stories of the Rabbins concerning this singular method of super- 
natural communication, reveal a degree of superstition, and be- 
tray a foudness for magical delusion, which sufficiently illustrate 
the real source of their famous "bath quol." In attributing to 
the writings of the Apocrypha this peculiar species of inspiration, 
a suspicion is naturally awakened, that much of the esteem in 
which they were held, may be ultimately traced to their own pat- 
ronage of something not very remote from the black art. A 
strong inclination to credulity and magic was, according to Light- 
foot, a characteristic of the Jews under the second temple, and I 

* For an account of this species of inspiration, see Witsii Opera, vol. i. lib, 
i. c. 3. Lightfoot on Matt. iii. 17. 



204 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

know of nothing better suited to a humor of this sort, than the 
book of Tobit, unless it be the Arabian Nights. 

You seem to think that if these books were not admitted into 
the Septuagint until after the time of Christ, it must have been done 
with the sanction of the apostles, in such a way as to imply that they 
were divinely inspired.* This would follow only upon the hypothe- 
sis, that when admitted they were admitted as inspired. If they were 
introduced into connection with the Septuagint, simply as histor- 
ical works, covering an interesting period of the Jewish annals, 
or as moral compositions pervaded by an elevated tone of reli- 
gious sentiment, there would be no more objection to incorpo- 
rating them with the Septuagint, than to placing them on the 
same shelf in a book-case. The apostles, I presume, would not 
have objected to their followers, that they studied the writings of 
the heathen philosophers, provided they did not make Plato and 
Aristotle arbiters of their faith. It was not the perusal of the 
books, or the places in which they were found, that could make 
a matter of exception. So long as they were treated simply as 
human compositions , possessed of no divine authority, and to be 
ultimately tried in all their doctrines by the sacred canon, the 
apostles would hardly object to the study of them. It was no 
part of their creed to denounce freedom of inquiry ; on the other 
hand, they inculcated the noble and generous maxim, " prove 
all things, hold fast that which is good." Paul did not hesitate 



* a I believe with Walton, that the Septuagint, as that collection was called, 
contained those books before the coming of the Saviour. You think this, if 
true, strengthens your argument. I think not. If those books, thus united, 
were uninspired, the Saviour and the apostles were certainly bound positively to 
reject them, not to suffer the unnatural union to pass into the church." * * 
But you do not believe that the Septuagint, at the Saviour's time, contained the 
Apocrypha. Rev. sir, a more disastrous avowal you could not have made. 
The union, then, took place in the church, necessarily under the eyes and with 
the approbation of the apostles, and their immediate, most faithful disciples. 
These books are quoted and referred to as divinely inspired Scripture. I could 
not desire a stronger case. Before the apostles, the contested books were not 
inserted. Immediately afterwards we find them already inserted. A change 
has taken place. It could only be effected by, it could only be attributed to, the 
Saviour and his apostles. Therefore they DID leave these works to the Chris- 
tian world as INSPIRED."— Letter II. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 205 

to quote the heathen poets ; and if the Hellenistic Jews and the 
early Christians could not place the Apocrypha by the side 
of their canonical books without sanctioning the inspira- 
tion of the former, how could Paul weave whole sentences of 
heathen poetry into his own divine compositions, without, at the 
same time, endorsing the supernatural inspiration of Aratus, 
lUenander, and Euripides? The argument from the Septuagint's 
containing the Apocrypha, is so evidently preposterous, that it 
need be pressed no farther. Let it lie in its glory, and let peace 
be with it. 

The whole matter in dispute betwixt us, is brought down at 
last to this plain issue. The Apocrypha must be rejected from 
the sacred canon, and treated simply as human compositions, un- 
less it can be shown, that Christ and his apostles did sanction 
their divine inspiration, and authorize their use as standards of 
faith. Up to the time of Christ, there was no satisfactory proof 
that they constituted any part of the oracles of God. Whatever 
evidence, therefore, now exists of their supernatural character, 
must have been developed in the age of the Apostles. Their 
inspiration must have been approved by men who gave unques- 
tionable evidence that they spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost. This is the proof which the case demands ; and if 
you fail to produce it, you are only spending your strength for 
that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth 
not. 



LETTER XIII. 

Rejection of the Apocrypha by the Jews. — Faith of the Primitive Church not a standard to us. 

To you and all your predecessors in this field of controversy, 
the conduct of the Jewish Church to whom were committed the 
oracles of God in regard to the Apocrypha, has been so serious- 
ly embarrassing that your efforts to explain it in consistency with 
your own views of their divine original, are a powerful illustra- 
tion of the desperate expedients to which men may be driven by 



206 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

extremity of circumstances, who are resolved not to receive the 
truth. The rule of Augustine is so palpably just, that the author- 
ity of a book must depend on the testimony of contemporary 
witnesses, that the absence of all such testimony, in the present 
case, or of any testimony at all for a long series not of years alone, 
but of centuries, is felt to be a huge impediment to your cause. 
As ycu cannot suborn the ancient people of God to give the least 
countenance to your vain and arrogant pretensions, you expend all 
your ingenuity upon fruitless and abortive efforts to reconcile 
the exclusion of the Apocryphal books from the Jewish canon 
with your modern hypothesis of their divine inspiration. The 
Jesuits cannot disguise their spleen at the stubborn and intracta- 
ble conduct of the sons of Abraham. In the true spirit of some 
of the venerable Fathers of Trent, Bellarmin speaks of the Jew- 
ish synagogue with great contempt, representing it to be, from its 
very name, a collection of cattle rather than men. And Campi- 
anus, his inferior in learning, though his superior in elegance, 
treats its canon as a mere grammatical affair, dependent upon the 
characters of the Hebrew alphabet, and incapable of being in- 
creased after the books had reached the charmed number of the 
letters. Others again have endeavored to show that the Jews, as a 
body, always entertained a profound respect for these disputed 
documents, and that some of the nation actually received them as 
divinely inspired. f But of all the theories which have ever been 
invented, that which you have borrowed and endorsed from Mel- 

* The spirit of the Fathers of Trent may be gathered from the following 
extract : 

" To these reasons, which the major part applauded, others added also, that 
if the Providence of God hath given an authentical Scripture to the Synagogue, 
and an authentical New Testament to the Grecians, it cannot be said without 
derogation, that the Church of Rome, more beloved than the rest, hath wanted 
this great benefit, and therefore, that the same Holy Ghost who did dictate the 
holy Books, hath dictated also that translation which ought to be accepted by 
the Church of Rome."— Father Paul, p. 147. For a full and able refutation of 
Campianusand Bellarmin upon this subject, see Rainold. Cens. Lib. Apoc. Tom. 
i. p. 96, &c. 

t This opinion is attributed by Melchior Canus to Cochlaeus, but the per- 
sons among the Jews who did receive these books have never been brought to 
light 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 207 

chior Canus is beyond controversy the most unfortunate.* It 
turns upon a distinction which I have already shown to be false, 
which Bellarmin himself saw to be untenable, and consequently 
passed without discussion, and which, as presented by you, is ab- 
solutely fatal to your cause. You deny that the Jews rejected 
the Apocrypha, because they had no satisfactory evidence that 
the books were inspired, or possessed no tribunal competent to 
enlarge the extent of the canon. They did not receive them, you 
admit, but as no body commissioned to pronounce an authorita- 
tive judgment, probably existed, there could be no rejection in the 
case. You lay greatstress upon the arbitrary distinction of Canus, 
that there is avast difference between not receiving a book as di- 
vine, and positively rejecting it as a human composition. 

Now, sir, you have only to turn to your second letter to per- 
ceive what you regarded as satisfactory proof, that in the days of 
Ezra an infallible tribunal existed, a council of the church, in the 
Old Law commissiond by God for the express purpose of teach- 
ing the faithful what were the inspired books. In your first and 
subsequent letters, conclusive evidence is furnished of your firm 
conviction, that many of these Apocryphal books were written 
before the time of the great synagogue, and consequently must 
have been in existence at the period of Ezra. You attribute, for 
instance, the book of Wisdom to Solomon ; Baruch, according 
to you, was originally an integral portion of Jeremiah, and the 
internal evidence is strong, that the book of Tobit was written 
some six or seven hundred years before the advent of Christ. 
Then again, the song of the three children, the history of Susan- 
nah, together with the story of Bel and the Dragon, you represent 
as having been originally parts of Daniel. The additions, too, to 
the book of Esther you make to be a portion of the book itself. 
From these statements it is evident that when the Jewish canon 
was settled, some of the Apocryphal books were in being. Here, 

* " Aliud est enim non accipere, aliud rejicere. Certe Judaei intra suum can- 
onem hos libros publica authoritate minime receperunt, tametsi non nulli ex 
illis, sacros et Divinos esse crediderint." — Lib. ii. cap. x. 

It is one thing not to receive, and another to reject. Certainly the Jews 
did not receive these books into their canon, and yet some of them believed 
them to be sacred and divine. 



208 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

then, is a curious question ; if a body specially commissioned to 
teach the faithful what where the inspired books, should omit to 
enumerate among them any that were truly inspired, would not 
such omission be exactly tantamount to positive rejection ? It 
would be vain to say that no sufficient evidence existed that the 
omitted books were really inspired. The very object of appoint- 
ing such a body is to afford that evidence ; neither can it be pre- 
tended that the books, though in being at the time, might be 
unknown to the tribunal, since according to the very terms of its 
commission, it was authorized to pronounce with infallible cer- 
tainty what books were inspired. Hence, such a body must have 
known all the inspired books that were extant at the time, and 
its failure to insert any book in the canon, becomes, by conse- 
quence, a damning proof of its human and earthly origin. Now 
if an infallible council settled the canon of the Jewish Church, 
and such, we have seen, is your hypothesis ; if at the time when 
the canon was settled, Baruch, Wisdom, and Tobit, the additions 
to Daniel and the additions to Esther, were extant ; if it is unde- 
niably certain that these compositions were not inserted, is not 
the conclusion irresistible that they were rejected by a body com- 
petent to determine their character ? Will you be pleased to ex- 
plain upon any other hypothesis how it happened that if Baruch 
was an integral portion of Jeremiah, the great synagogue separat- 
ed it from the rest of the book ? Let me ask you again, if Wisdom 
were written by Solomon, and was, as you say, truly inspired, 
why did it not receive at the hands of the council the same 
treatment with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles ? How 
comes it that the song of the three children, and the story of 
Bel and the Dragon, did not pass into the canon with the rest of 
Daniel? Why were the additions to the book of Esther ex- 
cluded, and why was Tobias, your darling Tobias, prevented from 
being enrolled among the authoritative documents of faith ? 

One of two things is intuitively evident, either the tribunal 
w 7 hich settled the canon of the Jews was not competent to teach 
the faithful what were the inspired books, or Baruch, Wisdom, 
and Tobit, were rejected. If you accede to the first proposition, 
you contradict your repeated declarations that the Jews did not 
reject the Apocrypha, since, according to this view, they must 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 209 

have rejected some of them. So that self-contradiction awaits 
you whichever horn of the dilemma you choose to adopt. If, 
however, you admit what upon the preceding statement of the 
case cannot be consistently denied, that any portion of the 
Apocrypha was rejected, then, according to your own hypothe- 
sis, you have the testimony of an infallible body against the 
inspiration of the rejected portion. This reduces you to a still 
more deplorable dilemma; and how you will extricate yourself, 
it is impossible for me to determine. On the one hand, the 
great synagogue of Ezra stares you in the face, pronouncing 
with infallible certainty that certain books are not inspired ; on 
the other, you are damned by the Council of Trent, if you do 
not receive it as infallible truth that these same books are in- 
spired. " When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of 
war." 

My object in exposing the suicidal character of your argu- 
ment, is simply to show, that upon every view of the case the 
testimony of the Jewish Church is clear and decided against 
the inspiration of the books whose divine authority you have un- 
dertaken to defend. That testimony you cannot evade. Your 
nice distinctions are wholly ineffectual, and if you cannot rebut 
the decision of the Jewish Church by the authoritative instruc- 
tions of Christ or his apostles, your cause is hopeless. Let the 
reader, then, bear distinctly in mind, that what you are required 
to prove is the historical fact, that our blessed Saviour, or his 
inspired Apostles, committed the Apocrypha to the Christian 
Church as infallible standards of faith. Up to the time of 
Christ, we find them treated as human compositions ; and we 
must continue to regard them in the same light, unless it can 
be shown that our great prophet has otherwise instructed the 
church. 

In your pretended refutation of the second argument of my 
original essay, you undertake the hopeless task of proving that 
the Primitive Church received these books from the hands of 
the apostles, as inspired productions. Your reasoning, if a series 
of assumptions can be called reasoning, may be reduced to the 
following syllogism : Whatever books the Primitive Church 
received as inspired, must have been received upon the authority 

10* 



210 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

of Christ and his apostles. The Apocrypha were received by 
the Primitive Church as inspired ; therefore, they must have 
been received upon the authority of Christ and his apostles. 
The testimony of the Primitive Church is consequently your 
medium of proof; a testimony, in this case, which, as we shall 
subsequently see, is not pointed and direct, but only mediate 
and inferential. 

This argument or syllogism is grossly at fault in two partic- 
ulars. In the first place, the major proposition is not logically 
necessary, and you have not attempted to show the connection 
between the subject and predicate. For aught that appears to 
the contrary, the primitive Christians might have received books 
as inspired without the sanction of Christ or his apostles. Cer- 
tain it is that you have nowhere proved that they could not have 
done it. You tell us that, " if they united in receiving those 
works as inspired, then is our (the Papal) cause fully sustained; 
for they would not have thus united unless they had been taught 
by the apostles that these books formed a part of the word of 
God." How does it appear that they would not have united ex- 
cept upon the specified condition? All that I can find in the 
shape of proof is, " that they were tried in the furnace of perse- 
cution, and laid down their lives by thousands, rather than swerve 
one jot or tittle from the truth handed down to them !" That 
they were exposed to dangers, sufferings, and death, is evident, 
but that this proves any thing more than the sincerity of their 
convictions, I am utterly unable to perceive. We may grant that 
they would not have added to the sacred canon books which they 
did not believe to be inspired ; but then the question is, whether 
their belief was always founded on apostolic teaching? Might 
they not be mistaken as to what Christ and his apostles had 
actually taught? If they were fallible, liable to be misled by 
designing men, the crafts of the devil, or the deceitful workings 
of their own hearts, they might have been perfectly sincere, and 
yet have received error in the place of truth. Even in the days 
of the apostles, and among the congregations collected by their 
labors, the mystery of iniquity had begun to work; and none can 
read the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians without being deeply 
convinced that the faith of professing Christians was not always 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 211 

adjusted to the standard of inspired instruction. Paul admon- 
ishes the Ephesian Elders, that even among themselves should 
men arise speaking perverse things to draw disciples after them ; 
and the exhortations to the seven churches of Asia reveal any 
thing but a necessary connection between the actual belief of 
the people, and the lessons which they had received from in- 
spired teachers. The faith, consequently, of the primitive 
Christians, is an exceedingly uncertain medium through which 
to arrive at the doctrines of Christ and his apostles; and yet, un- 
less there be an exact correspondence between them — unless the 
one answers to the other, as an image corresponds to its original, 
the seal to its impression, the purpose of your argument is not 
answered. You infer that such must have been the doctrine of 
Christ, because such was the faith of the church. Now if there 
be any possibility of error or deception on the part of the church, 
the force of your conclusion is proportionably weakened. It 
may be true, as a matter of fact, that the primitive church did 
not receive any other canon but that of Christ and his apostles ; 
but then, in order to determine this point, it must be previously 
known what books our Saviour received, and what books the 
primitive church received. When the documents included in 
their repective canons are fully ascertained, and each canon be- 
comes consequently known, we can then compare them, and pro- 
nounce upon their mutual agreement or discrepancy. But if one 
of the canons be unknown s I see no clew by which a knowledge 
of the other will enable us to resolve our difficulties. It is true 
that the canon of Christ and his apostles ought to be the canon 
of the Christian Church, but he who could reason from right to 
reality, from what should be to what is, will find himself halting 
on many a lame conclusion. Now in the present case, your pro- 
fessed object is to ascertain what books Christ and his apostles 
delivered to the church as the word of God : this is the unknown 
fact to be settled. You attempt to settle it by appealing to the 
faith of the primitive Christians. Your argument, of course, 
depends on the assumption that the primitive Christians believed 
nothing but what Christ and his apostles actually taught ; and 
of this assumption, the only proof which you furnish, goes no 
further than to establish the sincerity of the primitive disciples: 



212 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

a point which can answer your purpose only on the gratuitous 
hypothesis, that none can be in error and at the same time sin- 
cere, or that none can be deceived without being also necessarily 
hypocrites. When you shall have succeeded in proving that 
honesty and mistake are incompatible terms, mutually contradic- 
tory and destructive of each other, then, and not till then, your 
argument will have something oflogical coherence. To put the 
weakness of your reasoning in a clearer light : if it were admit- 
ted, which, however, cannot be done consistently with truth, 
that the early Christians did, in fact, believe that the Apocry- 
phal books were inspired, this would be a moral phenomenon 
demanding explanation. In all reasoning upon testimony, the 
principle of cause and effect lies at the basis of the process. A 
witness simply puts us in possession of the convictions of his own 
mind. These convictions are an effect, for which the constitu- 
tion of our nature prompts us to seek an adequate cause, and 
when no other satisfactory solution can be given but the reality 
of the facts to which he himself ascribes his impressions, then 
we admit the existence of the facts. But if any other cause can 
be assigned, the testimony should not command our assent. If 
a man afflicted with the jaundice should testify that the walls of , 
a, house were yellow, we might be fully persuaded of the sincerity 
of his own belief; but as an adequate cause, apart from the reality 
of the fact, could be assigned for his conviction, we should not 
feel bound to receive his statement. Two questions, conse- 
quently, must always arise in estimating the value of testimony; 
the first respects the sincerity of the witnesses : do they, or do 
they not express the real impressions that have been made upon 
their own minds? The second respects the cause of these con- 
victions : are there any known principles which can account for 
them without an admission of the facts to which the witnesses 
attribute them ? When we are satisfied that the witnesses are 
sincere, and that no causes apart from the reality of the facts 
can be assigned in the case, then the testimony is entitled to be 
received without hesitation. Such being the laws which regu- 
late the value of testimony, you were bound, after having shown 
that the primitive Christians believed the Apocrypha to be in- 
spired — you were bound to show, in addition, that no other as- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 213 

signable cause could satisfactorily account for this belief, this 
moral effect, but the authority of Christ and his apostles. 

In the mean time, it may be well to apprize you of the fact, 
that the actual faith of the primitive church, as such, is not 
received by Protestants as an authoritative standard of truth. 
There is always a previous inquiry into the grounds of that 
faith, and if they should be found weak, futile, or insufficient, 
thinking men feel no more obligation to reason badly, because 
good men before them have done so, than to disregard any of 
the sacred principles of justice, because distinguished saints 
have fallen into grievous sins. The Church of Jesus Christ, in 
the present day, does not believe in the Divine authority of 
those books which it admits to be canonical, because the ancient 
church regarded them in the same light ; but because there is 
satisfactory evidence that they were composed by men who 
wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The esteem in 
which they were held by the first Christians, amounts to nothing 
more than a presumption that there was sufficient proof of their 
supernatural origin ; but that proof itself and not the effect 
which it had on the minds of others, must be the ultimate his- 
torical grounds of faith. Historical testimony puts us in posses- 
sion of this proof; it lays before us the facts upon which the 
primitive Christians formed their judgment, and puts us as nearly 
as possible in the same relative situation with themselves, so 
that we can form an opinion upon the same evidence which was 
first submitted to their understandings. History bridges over 
the chasm of time, and makes us contemporary with the events 
which it sets in order before us. Hence it is absolutely false 
to say that the church now receives any document as inspired, 
because the church anciently received it ; the church now has 
the same facts in history, which the church anciently saw and 
heard, and consequently founds its judgment upon the same 
data. The only difference is in regard to the medium through 
which the knowledge of the facts is reached ; but the ultimate 
ground of faith is the same in both cases. If, for example, I 
were asked, why I received the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, 
as an inspired composition, I would answer, not because the 
primitive church received it — that would only create a presump- 



214 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

tion in its favor ; but because there is satisfactory proof that 
Paul wrote it, and equally conclusive evidence that Paul attested 
by miracles his supernatural commission as a teacher of the 
faithful. Now, Sir, if you could adduce any adequate historical 
testimony that Christ and his apostles gave their sanction to the 
Apocrypha as inspired compositions, you would then be able to 
adduce a sufficient ground of faith. I have already admitted, 
that wherever a document can be shown to have been written 
by persons empowered to achieve miracles as the proofs of their 
commission, or wherever a document can be shown to have 
received the approbation and sanction of those who were super- 
naturally commissioned, the historical evidence of its inspiration 
is complete. If you could, therefore, produce from the sacred 
Scriptures, or from any contemporary writers worthy of credit, 
direct statements of the fact, or of other facts necessarily involv- 
ing it, that Christ and his apostles delivered to the Church 
the documents in question as the word of God, you would then 
allege something to the purpose. But, sir, not a particle of 
such testimony have you been able to adduce. You have sim- 
ply inquired what the primitive Church believed; and without 
pausing to investigate the grounds of its belief, or the possibility 
of mistake, you have boldly assumed that it could believe nothing 
but what it had received upon inspired authority. 

But, in the second place, your syllogism is just as faulty in 
the minor, as it is in the major proposition. It so happens, as a 
matter of fact, that the primitive Christians did not receive any 
other canon but that of the Jews, which was also the canon of 
Christ and his apostles. They might have received another, 
so that their endorsement of a book is no necessary proof of its 
Divine authority ; but as it is historically true that they did not, 
your minor proposition is utterly without support, and my ori- 
ginal assertion, that the unbroken testimony of the Church for 
four centuries is against the inspiration of the Apocrypha, re- 
mains unshaken, notwithstanding your multiplied quotations and 
elaborate trifling in attempting to refute it. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 215 



LETTER XIV. 

The existence of the Apocrypha in ancient versions of the Scriptures, no proof of inspiration. 
— Not quoted by the Apostolic Fathers. 

That the primitive church ascribed to the Apocrypha the 
same canonical authority which they were accustomed to attrib- 
ute to Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, you endeavor to col- 
lect from the facts, that these books were embodied in all the 
ancient versions of the Bible, and quoted by the fathers, and not 
only quoted, but quoted distinctly as sacred Scripture. " The 
manner," you inform us, " in which the Christians of the first 
four centuries acted in regard to these writings, shows that they 
were left to them by the apostles as inspired." The first peculi- 
arity in their manner of acting which discloses the sentiments 
of the primitive disciples, is to be found in the circumstance, 
which you have gratuitously assumed, that " all these books, or 
parts of boohs, were contained in the Old Testament as used by 
the early Christians in the infancy of the church. i} 

I shall not here interrupt the tenor of the argument to expose 
the rashness of your inferences on the subject of some of these 
ancient versions. It is enough for my present purpose to ob- 
serve, that, upon the supposition that the facts are precisely as 
you have stated them to be, the conclusion by no means follows 
which you were anxious to deduce. You have already expressed 
the opinion, that antecedently to the advent of the Saviour, when 
there was no satisfactory proof of their Divine inspiration, and 
no tribunal commissioned to enlarge the dimensions of the canon, 
and when, of course, they could not have been received as any 
portion of the rule of faith, these very books were yet embodied 
in the version of the Seventy. How does it happen that the Hel- 
lenistic Jews could incorporate into their translation of the ca- 
nonical books, others which they were known not to receive as 
inspired, while the same privilege is denied to the Christian 
church? What is there in the change of dispensation that shall 
make it a certain proof after the advent of Christ, that a work 
is believed to be inspired if found in justaxposition to those which 
are confessed to be Divine, when the same collocation, under 



216 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the previous economy carried no such inference along with it? 
I had always supposed that the major proposition of an argument 
should be universally true, and that when any particular case 
was adduced which proved an exception to its general applica- 
tion, the argument ceased to be conclusive. Reasoning is only 
a felicitous method of applying to the parts, that which is con- 
fessed to be true of the whole, and when it is found from experi- 
ence, or any other source of information, that the process of 
arrangement has been wrong, and that the separate elements do 
not possess the properties which constitute the class, the leading 
proposition becomes false, and the argument is said to be re- 
futed. In the present case, you evidently reason on the princi- 
ple that whatever books are embraced in the same volume with 
those which are confessedly inspired, must be believed by those 
who sanction the combination, to be inspired also. Now, to 
assert that there are numerous instances in which such a mixture 
of the human and Divine has been sanctioned, as the proposition 
supposes to be impossible, is to accumulate refutations on each 
other. In addition to the case of the Jews, which has already 
been adduced, the Greeks to this day reject the Apocrypha 
from the canon, although they give them a place in their copies 
of the Scriptures. Who believes that because these books are 
found in the authorized English translation of the Bible, there- 
fore the Church of England receives them as inspired ? or that 
the large body of Protestant churches who adopt that translation, 
defer to their authority as supreme 1 There can be little doubt 
that the incorporation of the Apocrypha with the Septuagint, was 
the real cause of their being subsequently embraced in the later 
translations of the Scriptures. The old Italic version was made 
from that of the Seventy, and, of course, contained precisely the 
same books with the original from which it was made. The 
Hebrew Scriptures were " quite inaccessible/' says Bishop 
Marsh, " to Latin translators in Europe and Africa, during the 
first three centuries. In those ages the Jews themselves who in- 
habited Greece, Italy, and Africa, read the Old Testament in 
the Greek version. Thus the Greek Bible became to the Latin 
Christians a kind of original, from which they derived their own 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 21? 

translations of the Scriptures. ; ' # If the Peschito version was, 
as it is said to have been, made directly from the Hebrew, it 
could not originally have contained the Apocrypha; these books 
must have been subsequently added from the Greek copies in 
which they were circulated. Whatever currency, consequently, 
these spurious documents obtained among the early Christians, 
is due to the Septitagint ; and as upon your own hypothesis their 
insertion in that version took place previously to the advent of 
Christ, when the books were confessed not to be inspired, we 
must look for other motives besides an appeal to Divine authority 
for the amalgamation of human and Divine in the same volume. 
If, however, you prefer the hypothesis, that the mixture in ques- 
tion was made subsequently to the incarnation of the Saviour, 
after the apostles and apostolic fathers had fallen asleep, the phe- 
nomenon can be satisfactorily explained, without resorting to the 
fiction of inspiration. 

There are obvious considerations, apart from any convictions 
of Divine authority, that would lead the Christians, especially of 
the third century, as well as the Jews, to a diligent study of these 
books. They do not seem to have been much in vogue in the 
Christian church for the first two centuries after Christ. We 
find scarcely any allusion to them in the Apostolic Fathers, no 
quotations in Justin Martyr, and no certain proof that they were 
generally read. But a mystic spirit soon corrupted the piety of 
the church ; a spirit of dreamy superstition, similar to that which 
Lightfoot attributes to the Jews of the second Temple, which 
these books were well adapted to foster, and which, as it gained 
ground, would prompt its victims to regard their follies as signal 
illustrations of piety. This congeniality with a false spirit of 
religion, coupled with their relations to the history of God's an- 
cient people, would give them a popularity which some of them 
certainly did not deserve; they would be regarded with that sort 
of religious veneration with which the Christians of the present 
day contemplate the works of distinguished Divines, and would 
be bound up in the same volume with their Bibles, for conve- 
nience of reference, just as the Scotch combine in the same 

* Marsh, Comp. View, p. 99. 



218 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

book, the Scriptures of God and the metrical version of the 
Psalms by Rous. 

It may be well to observe, moreover, that this argument from 
ancient versions proves entirely too much ; it proves, if it prove 
any thing, that the books which Rome herself rejects as Apocry- 
phal, must be a part of the canon. The third and fourth books 
of Esdras, together with the prayer of Manasses, are actually em- 
bodied in that very translation of the Bible, which the Council of 
Trent pronounces to be authentic* The fourth book of Esdras, 
though not found in the Septuagint, is found in existing manu- 
scripts of the Vulgate. The third book of Esdras occurs in the 
principal copies of the Septuagint, with the exception of the 
Complutensian edition and those which are derived from it. The 
prayer of Manasses is inserted in manuscripts of the Vulgate, at 
the end of Chronicles, and is certainly found in some editions of 
the Septuagint. The third book of Maccabees, too, is to be 
found in the most ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint now 
extant. Why, then, are not these books canonical ? They are 
introduced into approved copies of the Bible; they occur in 
translations which the early Christians were accustomed to con- 
sult; and if they could be embodied in the same volume with the 
canonical Scriptures, without being received as inspired, I see 
not why the same privilege might not be extended to Wisdom, 
Tobit, and Judith. Dismissing, therefore, your argumsnt from 
the case of the ancient versions, as less than nothing and alto- 
gether lighter than vanity, I proceed to that upon which Bel- 
larmin rests the strength of your cause: the quotations from the 
Christian fathers. It is to be regretted that you have not, like 
this distinguished Jesuit, precisely specified the point upon which 
the discussion should be made to turn. I am at a loss to under- 
stand whether you regard a quotation, though unaccompanied 
with any expressions of respect that would seem to imply inspi- 
ration, as sufficient proof, or whether you design to confine the 
argument to those allusions in which the Apocrypha are said to 
be Divine. You are just as profuse in bringing forward instances 
in which there is nothing stronger than a mere accommodation of 

* Marsh, Comp. View, pp. 108, 9 (note). 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 219 

the words of the Apocrypha, as in adducing passages which seem 
to invest them with a sacred authority. Bellarmin, on the other 
hand, restricted the argument to those quotations in which these 
works are cited as Divine* I have already shown that mere 
quotations can prove nothing but the existence of a book, and 
to accommodate a passage is only to endorse the particular senti- 
ment which it contains, without any necessary approbation of the 
work itself. 

To prove that the Fathers quoted the Apocrypha, is a very 
different thing from proving that they believed these documents 
to be infallible standards of faith. Paul quoted the heathen 
poets, and the ancient infidels quoted, in scorn, the canonical 
Scriptures. It is, therefore, truly unfortunate for your cause 
that you have loaded your articles with numerous extracts which, 
if they were faithfully given, which in many cases they are not, 
from the original works of the Fathers, would prove nothing 
more than that they had read the books which Rome pronounces 
to be inspired, and adopted from them sentiments and opinions 
which they deemed to be applicable to their own purposes. 
By the same method of reasoning, there is hardly a Protestant 
writer of any note, who might not be convicted of acceding to 
the authority of the Romish canon. If you will turn to the 
works of Bishop Butler, and consult his fourth sermon upon the 
government of the tongue, in the very small compass of that 
single discourse, you will find more extracts from the Apocryphal 
books than you have been able to collect from all the writings of 
the apostolic Fathers. The fifth sermon concludes as the fourth 
had done, with a passage from the son of Sirach ; and the sixth 
almost opens with one. In the sermons of Donne, Barrow, and 
Jeremy Taylor, we find all classes of books, heathen and Chris- 
tian, gay and grave, lively and severe, indiscriminately quoted 
in the margin ; and yet these men would have thought it a most 
preposterous conclusion, that because they enriched their own 



* Disputat. de cont. lib. i. c. x. vol. i. p. 42. His words are, " Apostoli 
enim poterant sine aliis testimoniis declarare libros illos esse canonicos, quod et 
fecerunt : alio qui numquam Cyprianus et Clemens et alii quos citabimus, tarn 
constanter dixissent eos esse Divinos." 



220 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

compositions, plenis manibus, with the spoils of others, therefore 
they believed in the Divine inspiration of Aristotle and Tully, 
Lactantius and Origen, Euripides and Horace. Even the hum- 
ble writer of these lines could not escape the imputation of 
Romanism, if to quote a book and to believe it inspired are 
necessarily connected. In my own published sermons upon the 
Vanity and Glory of Man, written long after my essay on the 
Apocrypha had been anonymously committed to the press, an 
extract is made from the book of Wisdom ; and in my unpublished 
lectures upon the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, the splendid 
Apocryphal passage on the same subject, is introduced with com- 
mendation and applause. If bare quotations are to be regarded 
as satisfactory proofs of a supernatural origin, the cause of Rome 
can be sustained by " reasons as plentiful as blackberries." It 
is evident, however, that quotations themselves can prove nothing 
to the purpose; it is the manner in which the quotations are 
made, and the ends to which they are applied. If the Apocry- 
pha are not quoted as infallible standards of faith, of equal au- 
thority with Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, or if there are 
not circumstances attending the quotations which show indispu- 
tably that the writers regarded them as the word of God, from 
whose decision there was no appeal, nothing can be gathered 
from the fact, in behalf of these works, which could not also be 
collected from similar quotations in behalf of the heathen philoso- 
phers and poets. Why the ancient Fathers should be denied the 
privilege conceded to all writers, of adorning their compositions 
with elegant expressions or judicious sentiments, which might 
chance to strike them in the compass of their reading, it is diffi- 
cult for me to comprehend. It is certainly ridiculous to say that 
because a man writes upon religious subjects, he shall not lay all 
the resources of his knowledge under tribute to supply him with 
apt similitudes, or fitting illustrations. Surely he is permitted to 
bring the treasures of his learning to the feet of his Redeemer, 
and to honor his master with the spoils which he has gathered in 
his literary excursions. 

From the apostolic fathers you have pretended to present us 
with nothing but quotations, unaccompanied with a single expres- 
sion that indicates the light in which the original works were 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 221 

regarded. If, therefore, your extracts had been accurate, you 
would have gained nothing but the gratification of an idle vanity 
in the display of your learning. But by some strange fatality of 
blundering, which seems like an evil genius to attend you, you 
have.only exhibited your ignorance of the Fathers and the tongues 
in which their works were written. That the reader may be able 
to form an adequate estimate of the nature and value of your ser- 
vices as a literary critic, I shall examine your extracts from the 
apostolic Fathers with a degree of attention which they do not 
deserve. And first from Barnabas : 

Asyu yaq o nqo^priTr^ em tov Icrgmjl ' ovai %r\ ipv%r] aviwv on ($s- 
fiovlEWTai (SovXqv novi}Qav v.axf savTcav emovTsg' drjcrcopsv tov dixatov, 
otl dvaxgridToq rjfiiv evti. But what saith the Prophet against 
Israel : Woe be to their sons, because they have taken wicked 
counsel against themselves, saying, let us, therefore, lie in wait 
for the just, because he is not for our turn. — Barnab. Epist. § 6. 

" This passage/' you tell us, " is composed of two texts, 
Isaias iii. 9, * Woe to their soul, for evils are rendered to them,' 
and Wisdom ii. 12, ' Let us, therefore, lie in wait for the just, 
because he is not for our turn.' Here St. Barnabas quotes in the 
same sentence, and as of equal inspired authority, the book 
of Isaias contained in the canon of the Jews, and that of Wis- 
dom ; one of those you boldly declare to be of no more authority 
than Seneca's letters or Tully's Offices." Will the reader believe, 
after this confident statement, that the whole passage as quoted 
by Barnabas occurs almost verbatim in the book of Isaiah as 
found in the version of the Seventy? This, as we have already 
seen, at a very early period supplanted the Hebrew originals, and 
became itself the source of appeal and the fountain of authority. 
This venerable translation Barnabas used, and from it has intro- 
duced the text which you have attributed to the book of Wisdom, 
but which is not there to be found. In your fourth letter you 
seem to be sensible that you had gone a little too far in relation 
to this passage ; and if you had generously and magnanimously 
confessed your fault, I should have passed the matter over with- 
out any notice. If you had not obliquely insinuated a doubt 
whether Barnabas drew from the Septuagint or not, when the 
thing is as plain as any thing of that sort can possibly be made, 



222 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

I should have given you credit for an honesty and candor to which 
I am afraid your lame apology shows you not to be entitled. 
" Candor," you tell us, with a ludicrous gravity, when you were 
about to act with a very questionable regard to its precepts, " re- 
quires that I should make a remark on a passage in my last let- 
ter." The passage to which you refer is the one before us — 
now what is the remark ? "I did not at that moment (when writ- 
ing the letter) recollect that the passage from Isaias was one in 
which the translation of the Septuagint varies from the Hebrew 
as we have it now. St. Barnabas does not quote the Septuagint 
exactly, but he approaches so nearly as to make it possible, nay, 
probable, that the difference resulted from a varying reading of 
the Text." I shall now give the passage as found in the Septu- 
agint : 

Ovat %r\ ipv/rj avToov, dtoTi ft8(3ovXsvvTcu (jovlrjv ttovijqciv xatf sav- 
tcov, siTrovisg* dqcrwfisv tov dixcaov, oti dv<j%Q7]<TTog r^iv ecftl. — Isaiah 
iii. 9, 10. 

Now the only difference in the passage as quoted by Barna- 
bas, and as found in Isaiah, is in the fifth word, the causal particle 
dioTi — of which, in Barnabas, the first syllable is wanting. But 
the part of the sentence w r hich you ascribe, in your third letter, 
to Wisdom, is, verbatim et literatim, the same in the Father and 
Prophet. But the beauty of the whole matter lies in this : in 
your third letter, you were absolutely certain that a text was 
quoted from Wisdom, when the principal word in the text was 
not to be found in the passage to which you referred us. Barna- 
bas says dijvcofiev tov dixawv, In Wisdom it is written, svedgsvacj- 
(liev ds tov dixaiov. But in your fourth letter the omission of a sin- 
gle syllable is sufficient to raise a doubt — makes it only probable 
that a quotation is intended. You were quite confident that a 
sentence is taken from Wisdom when the leading word is 
changed, another word added, and the sense materially altered ; 
you are not so sure that it can be from Isaiah, when the sense, 
words, and every thing but one poor harmless syllable, are ex- 
actly preserved. If, sir, you could find passages in the Fathers 
so nearly corresponding to passages in the Apocrypha, as those 
of Barnabas and Isaiah, we should not be troubled with your 
doubts; it would be no longer a " possible, nay a probable" mat- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 223 

ter that they were genuine quotations ; we should hear the yell 
of triumph, the chuckle of delight, and the insulting tones of 
defiance. If, however, there be the least hesitation in admitting 
that Barnabas quoted from Isaiah, it is irresistibly evident that 
he could not have quoted from Wisdom. Instead then of its 
being so very clear that the good father " quotes in the same sen- 
tence, and as of equal inspired authority, the book of Isaiah con- 
tained in the canon of the Jews, and that of Wisdom, one of 
those you boldly declare to be of no more authority than Sene- 
ca's Letters or Tully's Offices," it is absolutely certain that no 
allusion is made whatever to the Apocryphal production. So 
much for your first effort to find the Apocrypha in the fathers. 
You have begun your career under inauspicious omens, and I 
apprehend that you will be satisfied, before this discussion is con- 
cluded, that an evil genius attends you, whom all your sacerdotal 
enchantments will prove unavailing to exorcise. 

Your second attempt is like unto your first. In xix* of this 
same Epistle of Barnabas, a passage occurs which you have dis- 
covered to be a quotation from the book of Ecclesiasticus, (iv. 
28, 31,) though you have not been at the pains in this particular 
instance to account for the manifest discrepancies between the 
son of Sirach and the Father, by a " varying reading" of the 
text. It is never doubtful whether the Apocrypha were quoted ; 
but as Papists have a cordial abhorrence of the Bible, they are 

* The translation of Barnabas is as follows : " Thou shalt not be forward 
to speak ; for the mouth is the snare of death ; strive with thy soul for all thy 
might. Reach not out thy hand to receive, and withhold it not when thou 
shouldst give." The originals are as follows : 

.Barnabas — (Jvk £Grj 7rpoy\coGGog ' itayig yap GTo/xa Bavarov. Qgov Svvaaai vrrep rr\v 
ipv%r]v gov ayvevasig. M77 yivov irp [xev to \a8eiv sktsivov rag %eipag. irpog Se to 
Sovvai GVG7T0JV. 

Ecclesiasticus — Eco? tov Bavarov -n-spi rrjg a^Seiac, tcai YLvpiog o Qsog 

TToXsfirjcet vnep gov. M/j yivov rpa^vg £v y\o)GGrj gov, Kai vojBpog Kai napeijxevog £v 
roig spyeig gov. M>7 £otco rj %£ip gov exTeTapEvr) eig to Xa/?£tj/, Kai ev tco anooiSovai 
GWEGTaX^err]. 

The version of Ecclesiasticus is in these words : " Strive for justice for thy 
soul, and even unto death fight for justice, and God will overthrow thy enemies 
for thee. Be not hasty in thy tongue; and slack and remiss in thy works. 
Let not thy hand be stretched out to receive, and shut when thou shouldst 
give." I have given the Italics as found in A. P. F.'s citation. 



22i ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

slow to discern quotations from the canon among those whom 
they honor. 

It will be perceived, upon consulting the original, that your 
translation of Barnabas and the Doway version of Ecclesiasticus, 
which you have copied without change, are neither of them con- 
sistent with the original text. According to you there are three 
coincidences in these passages, which show that the one must 
have been taken from the other. The first, which you have ital- 
icized, is the exhortation to strive; but unfortunately no such ex- 
hortation is found in Barnabas. The good Father is insisting 
upon the duties of benevolence, charity, and temperance, and in 
the passage before us exhorts his readers to cultivate chastity, 
even beyond the resources of their natural strength. There is 
nothing in the Greek that can, by any possibility, be made to 
correspond with the sentence in your version : "strive with thy 
soul for all thy might." 

The conjectural reading of Cotelerius, which you seem to 
have followed, vtisq ir^ ipv/rjg gov aywvsvaeig, is liable to serious 
objections. In the first place, the word ayowevasig, which that 
critic would substitute for the received reading, ayvevasig, be- 
longs to no language under the sun — most certainly it is not 
Greek — it is justified neither by the usage of the classics, the 
authors of the Septuagint, nor the writers of the New Testament. 
The legitimaate word to express the idea of striving, is aycon^oj. 
In the second place, the new reading gives a sense wholly un- 
suited to the connection in which the passage is found. It occurs 
among a series of earnest exhortations to specific duties. It is 
preceded by solemn admonitions against severity to servants, 
avarice and volubility, and succeeded by directions equally defi- 
nite and precise. Now to introduce an abstract proposition, 
which covers a multitude of duties, in the midst of specific, defi- 
nite and precise instructions, is, to say the least of it, exceedingly 
awkward. The old reading, which makes the passage an ex- 
hortation to the practice of chastity, suits the nature of the con- 
text, and, on that account, is to be decidedly preferred. In the 
third place, there is no need of emendation. The preposition 
seems to be used in its common acceptation, when followed by 
the accusative, of excess, and yvyrp may be regarded as a com- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 225 

pendious expression for the powers of the man. This word is 
frequently used to designate the whole man, and in such con- 
nections is equivalent to av&Qconog, and every Greek scholar 
knows that vjisq av&Qwrrov may be properly rendered " beyond 
human strength" (Viger De Idiotismis, c. 9, § 9, Reg. 1. 

Turned into English, and substituting the imperative for the 
future, the passage in Barnabas, upon which you found your first 
coincidence, is simply this : " As far as you are able, beyond your 
strength, cultivate chastity." Employ not only your natural re- 
sources — these alone are not to be trusted, but seek a strength 
beyond your own, even the all-sufficient grace of God. What 
now in the corresponding passage says Jesus the son of Sirach ? 
" Strive for truth even unto death :" a marvellous coincidence 
with the exhortation to purity ; an extraordinary quotation, when 
there is not a single word in the two clauses alike. One is ex- 
horting to stability of opinion, and the other to innocence of life. 
The next coincidence is the exhortation in relation to the tongue. 
In the clauses containing this advice, the principal words, as 
found in Greek, are widely different in their meaning. Barnabas 
uses a word (Ttgoylowaog) which denotes excessive volubility, and 
he gives advice, therefore, precisely similar to that recorded in 
the first chapter and nineteenth verse of the epistle of James : 
" Be slow to speak." The son of Sirach, on the other hand, is 
exhorting to civility of speech, and uses expressions which, when 
literally translated, amount to this : " Be not rough with your 
tongue." The Latin version surely should not supersede the 
Greek, and I know of no copies of the Septuagint that give the 
reading ja%vg which the Latin translators seem to have followed,* 
though some copies do give S-gacrvg. Either of these readings 
harmonizes exactly with the succeeding verse : " Be not as a 
lion in thy house nor frantic among thy servants." This sen- 
tence illustrates what he means by being u rough-tongued ;" it 
is to betray the fury and ferocity of the lion among those who 
are dependent upon us. The coincidence, then, in this passage 

* I say, seem to have followed, because the phrase adopted by the Vulgate . 
citatus in lingua, is evidently susceptible of a rendering consistent with the 
common reading : " Be not violently excited in thy tongue or speech." - 

11 



226 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

between Barnabas and Ecclesiasticus, is just the coincidence be- 
tween an admonition not to be loquacious or excessively talka- 
tive, and an admonition to overcome acerbity of speech. One 
says, in effect, " be silent" the other says, " be gentle" It is 
very obvious that the sentiment in Barnabas was suggested by 
the passage in James upon the same subject. 

The last coincidence which you notice, is in reference to 
what is said of illiberality or avarice ; and here I freely admit 
that there is a coincidence both of expression and sentiment, but 
a coincidence just of that sort which betrays no marks of design. 
It is a repetition in both cases of one of those common maxims 
which are to be found in all writers upon morals. The sentiment 
is evidently the same with that which Paul attributes to the Sa- 
viour, in Acts xx. 35, and which is likewise suggested by nu- 
merous passages in the heathen pages of antiquity. Barnabas 
says, " Extend not thy hand to receive — close it not to give." 
Our Saviour says, it is more blessed to give than to receive. In 
almost precisely the same words, Artemidorus says, li To give is 
better than to receive" (Oneirocr. iv. 3). ^Elian says, " It is bet- 
ter to enrich- others than to be rich ourselves" (H. V. xix. 13), 
and a similar sentiment occurs in Aristotle, Nichom. iv. 1* 
Coincidences of this sort, evidently show, that such aphorisms 
must be regarded as the spontaneous suggestions of .the mind to 
those who observe, with the eye of the moralist, the vicissitudes 
of men and manners. The same process of thought by which 
they become the property of one understanding, renders them 
the possession of others. They belong to those common topics 
which, whoever attempts to discuss, will, according to Johnson, 
" find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of 
other writers," growing out of the very nature of the subject, 
and implying no design to imitate or adopt. 

The next passage with which you favor us, is taken from a 
part of the Epistle of Polycarp to trfe Philippians, which is now 
preserved only in a Latin translation. We cannot consequently 



* For many striking illustrations of the same sentiment to be found in va- 
rious authors, the reader is referred to Kuinoel, Wolfius and Wetstein,on Acts 
xx. 35. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AM) REFUTED. 227 

determine with certainty, what precisely were the words which 
the Father employed. You seem to be quite certain that he had 
his eye upon Tobit xii. 9 — " For alms delivereth from death." 
The whole passage to which you refer in Polycarp, is in these 
words : "Quum notestis benefacere polite deferre : quia eleemo- 
syna de morte liberat. Omnes vobis invicem subjecti estote : 
conversation em vestram irreprehensibilem habentes in gentibus."* 
In commenting upon this extract, you inform us that " St. Poly- 
carp, like St. Barnabas, quotes in the same breath an author/' 
whom all admit to be inspired (1 Peter ii. 12), and another whom 
Protestants reject (Tob. xii. 9). 

If we admit, in the first place, that Polycarp quoted from 
Tobias, it will by no means follow that he regarded the book as 
inspired or canonical. He simply accommodates a sentence 
which suited his present purpose, just as Paul adopted from Me- 
nander the memorable aphorism, " evil communications corrupt 
good manners." But, in the second place, the passage in Tobit 
is itself a quotation — a literal quotation from the tenth chapter 
and second verse of the book of Proverbs, where it is rendered 
in our English version, " righteousness delivereth from death." 
The coincidence of the sentiment in the contexts, creates a pre- 
sumption that the one passage was suggested by the other. Sol- 
omon's context is, "treasures of wickedness profit nothing;" 
and that of Tobit is, " it is better to give alms than to lay up 
gold." Solomon adds, " righteousness delivereth from death ;" 
and Tobit adds that " alms deliver from death." Now the He- 
brew word which Solomon employs for righteousness (n£^) is 
not unfrequently rendered by the Seventy, elsrjfiocrvvri (alms), the 
very word which is found in the Greek translation of this passage 
of Tobit. If, then, Tobit was originally written in Hebrew, as 
was doubtless the case, there being Hebrew copies extant in the 
time of Origen, the probability is that the same word which 
occurs in Proverbs, was used in this place. The Jews were ac- 
customed to interpret the passage in Solomon precisely as it has 

* The passage may be thus translated : " When it is in your power to do 
good, defer it not, for alms delivereth from death. Be ail of you subject one to 
another, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles." 



228 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

been rendered by the Greek translators of Tobit (Rosenmuller 
in Prov. x. 2). Hence, in the original, this text of Tobit was in 
all probability an exact quotation from the corresponding text in 
Proverbs. It is worthy of remark, that there are several Hebrew 
copies of Tobit extant at this day, translated, it is generally sup- 
posed, from the Greek. Two of these have been published, one 
by Sebastian Munster, and another by Paul Fagius. Huetius 
possessed another, in manuscript, differing somewhat from both, 
but according more closely with that of Munster. The editions 
of Munster and Fagius were reprinted in the London Polyglott, 
and may be found in the fourth volume of Walton, with the Latin 
translations of these distinguished scholars annexed. Both these 
copies, in the passage before us, concur, literatim et punctuatim, 
with the passage in Proverbs, which is certainly a strong pre- 
sumption that Solomon's Hebrew and Tobit's Greek (or rather 
his translator's) are precisely equivalent. 

Now the question is, which did the Father quote, the Sep- 
tuagint translation of Solomon, or the Greek translation of To- 
bit, since both were versions of the same original? Your answer 
is, that he quoted Tobit. How can that be known ? His own 
Greek is lost, and we have no means of ascertaining what word 
he used. If he employed the term dixaioavvi] (righteousness), 
then Solomon, as found in the LXX, was quoted ; if he employed 
eXerj^oavvrj (alms), then the Greek version of Tobit was quoted. 
How shall we determine which word was employed 1 The Latin 
translation affords no certain clew, since either term might be 
rendered eleemosyne, both corresponding as they do to the He- 
brew, and the one always, and the other frequently, meaning the 
same thing as eleemosyne. 

Your next passage is from the first Epistle of Clement to the 
Corinthians, which, you say, is compounded of Wisdom xi. 22 
and xii. 12. 

There is, however, an exact agreement in sense, although not 
a verbal correspondence, between this passage and Daniel iv. 35, 
(32 in LXX) and Burton is of opinion that Clement had speecially 
in his eye, Isaiah xlv. 9, and Rom. ix. 19, 20. The idea is one 
continually occurring in the canonical Scriptures, and I think it 
doubtful whether the Father had any particular passage in his 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 229 

mind ; for his words exactly tally with no one text or combina- 
tion of texts in the Scriptures. I shall present, however, Cle- 
ment, Wisdom, and Daniel, that the reader may judge for him- 
self whether the Father had not as much reference to Daniel as 
to Wisdom ; and as, in this case, I do not object to your transla- 
tion, I shall dispense with the original. 

Clement says: " Who shall say to Him, what dost thou, or 
who shall resist the power of His strength V 

Wisdom : " For who shall say to thee, what hast thou done ; 
and who shall resist the strength of thy arm." 

Daniel says: " He doeth according to His will, in the army of 
Heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, and none can stay 
His hand, or say unto Him, what dost thou?" 

The coincidence with Daniel is more striking from the suc- 
ceeding sentence in Clement — " When He wills and as He wills, 
He has done all things, and none of His decrees shall pass 
away." 

Your last reference to the Apostolic Fathers is peculiarly 
unfortunate. You appeal to the abstract which Clement has 
given us of the history of Judith in the fifty-fifth section of his 
epistle, and would insinuate the belief that there was something 
in the passage to favor the idea that the book was inspired. But 
what is the fact? The history of Judith is commended as a 
laudable example in the same connection with the story of CEdi- 
pus, and the heathen accounts of such devoted men as Codrus, 
Lycurgus, and Scipio Africanus. A wonderful proof of inspira- 
tion, truly ! Clement, no doubt, believed the authenticity of the 
book, but that is a very different matter from its divine inspira- 
tion. The only passage in the reference of Clement upon which 
you fasten as a quotation from Judith, happens very strangely 
not to be one.* If you will turn to the originals, you will find 

* I shall give the whole passage as it appears in Archbishop Wake's trans- 
lation : 

" Nay, and even the Gentiles themselves have given us examples of this 
kind : for we read how many Kings and Princes, in times of pestilence, being 
warned by their oracles, have given up themselves unto death, that by their own 
blood they might deliver their country from destruction. Others have forsaken 
their cities that so they might put an end to the seditions of them. We know 



230 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

that the words translated " deliver " are very different in Judith 
and Clement, and the epithet with which Judith distinguished 
the Lord is omitted by the Father, and the name of Holofernes 
is not mentioned in Judith, though it is in Clement. There is 
nothing, I may add, in the account which Clement gives of Es- 
ther, that can be remotely] tortured into proof that he deemed 
the Apocryphal portions to be inspired. He appeals to her his- 
tory simply as true, and intimates nothing of the origin of the 
book. 

Such then are your abortive efforts to find a tradition in the 
Apostolic Fathers that Christ and his apostles delivered the Apoc- 
rypha to the Christian church as the oracles of God. If the 
apostles, in their own writings, said nothing on the subject, this 
is the age and these the men upon whom, according to Bellar- 
min himself, we must rely. Contemporary writers or the next 
generation, this wily Jesuit admits, are the legitimate witnesses 
of the authenticity of facts. HeTe, after the apostles had fallen 
asleep, and the last of those who had seen or been taught by 
them is gathered to his fathers, there remains not a single inti- 
mation, not a distant hint, not even a remote insinuation, that 
these spurious documents which Rome has canonized, are part 
and parcel of our faith. Who now shall tell us what Christ and 
his apostles had taught? Who shall be able to penetrate the 
past, when the only light which could guide us, is withdrawn for- 
ever ? What witnesses shall we evoke, when those alone who 



how many among ourselves, have given up themselves unto bonds, that thereby 
they might free others from them ; others have sold themselves into bondage, 
that they might feed their brethren with the price of themselves ; and even 
many women, being strengthened by the grace of God, have done many glori- 
ous and manly things on such occasions. The blessed Judith, when her city was 
besieged, desired the Elders that they would suffer her to go into the camp of 
their enemies, and she went out exposing herself to danger for rhe love she bare 
to her country and her people that were besieged ; and the Lord delivered Holo- 
fernes into the hands of a woman. Nor did Esther, being perfect in faith, ex- 
pose herself to any less hazard, for the delivery of the twelve tribes of Israel in 
danger of being destroyed ; for by fasting and humbling herself, she entreated 
the great Maker of all things, the God of spirits, so that beholding the humility 
of her soul, he delivered the people for whose sake she was in peril."— Wake's 
Apostol Fathers, pp. 202-3. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 231 

were competent to testify, have kept the silence of the grave ? It 
is perfectly plain that if, up to the commencement of the second 
century, nothing is known about any such instructions on the 
subject of the Apocrypha, as you attribute to Christ, nothing can 
be satisfactorily ascertained afterwards. The witnesses are too 
far removed from the facts. That nothing was known, however, 
when the last of the Apostolic Fathers was called to his reward, 
must be assumed as true, until it is proved to be false. The 
silence of these men is death to your cause. In vain have you 
endeavored to make them break that silence ; your feeble efforts 
have only recoiled in deep and indelible disgrace upon your own 
character as a scholar and a critic. 



LETTER XV. 



The application of such expressions as ' Scripture,' 'Divine Scripture,' by ancient writers 
to the Apocrypha, no proof of inspiration. 

The only plausible argument, in support of your proposition 
that the primitive church received the Apocrypha as inspired, is 
derived from the fact that the early Fathers, in introducing 
quotations from these disputed books, not unfrequently applied 
to them the same expressions with which they were accustomed 
to distinguish the canonical records. Upon this point, as I have 
hinted already, Bellarmin principally dwelt. He refers, as you 
have done in your fourth and succeeding letters, to passages of 
the ancient writers in which they not only accommodate the lan- 
guage of the Apocrypha, but also denominate it scripture, some- 
times without any qualifying epithet, and sometimes with the 
titles, in addition, sacred, holy, or divine. To infer from a 
circumstance, like this, that they regarded these works as pos- 
sessed of the same authority with Moses, the Prophets, and the 
Psalms, or the acknowledged compositions of the Apostles and 
Evangelists, is to be guilty of a gross paralogism. Those who 
reason in this way, manifestly take for granted, that the term 



232 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

scripture is exclusively applicable to inspired compositions ; but 
where is the evidence of this fact ? It is freely conceded that 
this is a common and familiar designation of the canonical 
books, but it by no* means follows, that it is restricted in its 
usage exclusively to them. To say that because all inspired 
writings are scripture, therfore all scripture must also be neces- 
sarily inspired, is to assume as true, what will be found, with a 
single exception, to be invariably false, that the simple converse 
of an universal affirmative proposition is equivalent to the 
original statement. Your reasoning, if I understand it, is this : 
the primitive church believed the Apocrypha to be inspired, 
because the Fathers quoted them as scripture, — and all scripture 
must be inspired, because all books confessedly inspired, are 
denominated scripture. This burlesque upon logic cannot be 
more happily illustrated than by a parallel case. He who should 
ascribe^ to the beasts of the field the distinctive excellences of 
men, because beasts and men are alike said to be subject to 
decay, would reason precisely as you do in deducing the Divine 
authority of the books in question, from the application to them 
of the same titles which are given to the sacred canon. When 
your argument is stated in the form of syllogism — which, after 
all, is the real test of conclusive reasoning — it will be found to 
contain the miserable fallacy of an undistributed middle. 

The inspired books are called scripture ; the Apocrypha are 
called scripture; therefore the Apocrypha are inspired. Before 
you were at liberty to draw the triumphant conclusion, which 
you seem to think you have legitimately reached, it was evi- 
dently incumbent upon you to prove, (for this was the major 
proposition which the case required,) that whatever is called 
scripture, or Divine scripture, must have been written under the 
supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit. This is unquestionably 
the basis of your argument ; and in pity to the cause which you 
had undertaken to sustain, you should have placed it upon 
grounds less treacherous and deceitful than its being the con- 
verse of a statement universally acknowledged to be true. Why, 
therefore, did you not manfully meet the point, and prepare the 
way for your multiplied quotations, by showing, at the outset, 
what is certainly far from evident, that scripture and inspiration 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 233 

were coextensive in their import? It is not a little remarkable 
that you should have expended so much labor in evincing that 
the Apocrypha were often characterized by this appellation, 
and yet have passed in profound silence the other proposition 
which was equally important, that all books so denominated 
must be inspired. Believe me, sir, it was a most unfortunate 
oversight ; it leaves your conclusion halting upon a single 
premiss : about as good a support as a solitary crutch to a man 
destitute of legs. All that your extracts are capable of proving, 
may be fully granted ; that the books in question were often 
distinguished by the title of scripture ; but it is a broad leap 
from an ambiguous expression of this sort, to the conclusion 
which you have collected. There are several considerations 
which indisputably show that such appellations as scripture, 
divine scripture, &c, were generic terms, as used among the 
Fathers, having a much larger extension than your argument 
seems to suppose. While they included as a part of their mean- 
ing those works which were acknowledged to be the offspring of 
the Holy Ghost, they were also applied to other departments of 
composition, in which no other spirit was conceived to predom- 
inate but the spirit of devotion. Scripture itself is synonymous 
with writing, and is, consequently, an appropriate term for 
designating any thing recorded with the pen. The epithets, 
sacred, holy, and divine, not unfrequently imply what is suited 
to produce, to stimulate or quicken the devout affections of the 
heart; and the whole phrase, divine scripture, Pwas employed 
among the ancients to denote that peculiar class of composition, 
which we denominate religious, in opposition to profane. Even 
in our own tongue, the word scripture, contrary to its present 
acceptation, was used among the earlier writers with a latitude 
of meaning analogous to that which obtained in the language 
from which it was derived. It was not only applied to any 
written document whatever, whether sacred or profane, but was 
even extended to inscriptions on a tomb* The Greek word 
yoacpi] was, perhaps, more general than the English term zvriting, 
as it embraced not only the work of the scribe, but the per- 

* See Richardson's Dictionary, word Scripture, 
11* 



234 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

formance of the painter. We are so accustomed, however, to 
the definite and restricted application of the word scripture, and 
particularly the plural, scriptures, to the inspired records of our 
faith, that we experience no little difficulty in divesting ourselves 
of this association, when the term is mentioned, and in going 
back to the thoughts and feelings of an age when it suggested 
nothing so peculiar, emphatic, and precise. The Christian Fa- 
thers themselves seem to have labored under a measure of em- 
barrassment in selecting, from the general and extensive phrases 
which were best adapted to the purpose, appropriate titles of 
distinction and respect for the sacred volume. If there had 
been any one phrase which the usage of the language would 
have authorized them to adopt as a specific and exclusive name 
for their inspired documents, they would hardly have accumu- 
lated so many titles as are found scattered through their writings. 
The definite word would have been uniformly, at least generally, 
adopted. But no such definite appellation existed, and they 
were obliged to employ generic terms in a peculiar and em- 
phatic sense, when they appealed to their rule of faith. Some- 
times the sacred canon was denominated the Holy Scriptures ; 
sometimes the Oracles of the Lord ; sometimes Divine Scriptures, 
Divine Oracles, Divinely Inspired Scriptures, Scriptures of the 
Lord, the True Evangelical Canon, the Old and New Testament, 
the Ancient and New Scriptures, the Ancient and New Oracles, 
Books of the Spirit, Divine Fountains, Fountains of the Divine 
Fulness.* In this abundance of phrases, and only a part is given, 
there is an obvious effort to convey a precise idea by terms 
which were felt to be general ; a constant endeavor to limit, in a 
particular case, what, according to the laws of the language, 
was susceptible of a larger extension. Hence, while it is true 
that such phrases were pre-eminently applied to the word of God, 
we must know that a given book is the word of God before we 
can determine whether these titles are bestowed on it in the 
restricted and emphatic sense, or in their usual and wider signi- 
fication. That the Fathers were accustomed to use them in 



* See a collection of these titles in Paley's Evidences of Christianity, pt. i. 
chap. 9. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 235 

both applications, it requires but little acquaintance with their 
writings to be assured. 

Eusebius testifies that Irenaeus, whom you have represented 
as endorsing the Apocrypha, cited as scripture one of the weak- 
est performances of ecclesiastical antiquity — the Shepherd of Her- 
mas. His words are worthy of being fully exhibited : " Nor did 
he (Irenaeus) only know, but he also receives the scripture of 
the shepherd, saying: Well therefore spake the scripture, which 
says: ' First of all, believe there is one God, who created and 
formed all things, and what follows.' "* Here it is evident, that 
scripture means only a written document, and has no reference 
whatever to any impression of supernatural origin. The mean- 
ing of Irenaeus, as Lardner very justly expounds it,f is exactly 
this : " Well spake that writing, work or book, which says." " It 
is certain," continues the author of the credibility, " that Iren- 
aeus himself had so used this word ygacprj or scripture." Giving 
an account of the Epistle of Clement, written to the Corinthians 
jn the name of the church of Rome, he says : " The church of 
Rome sent a most excellent scripture (that is, Epistle) to the 
Corinthians." And afterwards, " from that scripture one may 
learn the Apostolical tradition of the church." Eusebius himself 
uses the term sntdTob] as synonymous with ygacprj. " Polycarp," 
says he, " in his scripture to the Philippians, still extant, has 
made use of certain testimonies taken from the first Epistle of 
Peter. "| Among the Apocryphal books of the New Testament, 
which he utterly rejects from any reasonable claim to inspired 
authority, he mentions the scripture of the acts of Paul. Clemens 
of Alexandria, § who figures largely in your pages, applies the 
term scriptures to the compositions of the heathen authors, with 
which Ptolemy adorned his library, as well as to the sacred and 
canonical books. || 

If the word were not confessedly general and indefinite, no- 
thing could be inferred from it as a term of reference, after the 
Apocrypha had become incorporated into the sacred volume, and 
but few references were made to them before, and had begun to 

* H. E- lib. v. c. 8. t Works, vol. ii. p. 186 (London Ed. 1831). 

\ H. E. lib. iv. c. 14. 6 H. E. lib. iii. c. 25. || Strom. 1, 



236 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

be used as a means of instruction in the congregations of the 
faithful. They would naturally receive the same titles which 
belonged to the collection as a whole. The name of the volume 
would be adopted for the convenience of citation, and nothing 
could be deduced from a quotation of this sort, but the existence 
of the book in the specified volume. 

Nothing is added to the strength of the argument by citing 
passages from the Fathers in which the Apocrypha are denomi- 
nated sacred or divine scripture. To say nothing of the fact 
that such quotations occur, for the most part, after the custom 
to which allusion has just been made obtained extensive preva- 
lence, there is abundant evidence that this, and equivalent phra- 
seology, were often employed to convey the idea of religious lit- 
erature. Divine scripture, in numerous instances, means pre- 
cisely the same thing as an (i edifying book" or a composition 
upon religious subjects. Dionysius, surnamed the Areopagite, 
quoting a passage from the Epistles of Ignatius, styles him the 
Divine Ignatius. * Polycrates, the metropolitan Bishop of Ephe- 
sus, said of Melito, that " he was governed in all things by the Holy 
Ghost. "f Cyril, appealing to a decree of the Council of Nice, calls 
it a divine and most lioly oracle, and speaks of its decisions as 
divinely inspired. \ Melchior Canus admits that Innocent III. 
pronounced the words of Augustine to be holy scripture, just as 
the Pontifical laws are called holy to distinguish them from the 
statutes of Princes. § So, too, the decrees of councils and the de- 
cisions of the church were called holy and divine, because they 
related to the subject of religion. 

But what places it beyond all doubt, that the honorable Epi- 
thets with which the Fathers adorn the Apocrypha were not in- 
tended to convey the idea of inspiration, is, that in some instan- 
ces those very writers who reject them from the canon, yet quote 
them under the same titles. Origen, who in professedly enumer- 
ating the books which constituted the rule of faith, excluded the 
Apocrypha from the canon, did not scruple to refer to the Wis- 
dom of Solomon and of Sirach, to the books of Maccabees, Tobit, 

* De Div. Nom. cap. iv. lect. 9. t Euseb. H. E. lib. v. c.24. 

t De Trinitat. lib. i. § Rainokl, Censura Librorum Apocry. vol. i. p. 67. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 237 

and Judith, as scriptures or the divine word (&eiog loyoq)* Je- 
rome, whose testimony is as explicit as language can make it, 
cites a passage from the book of Ecclesiasticus, and calls it di- 
vine scripture.i Now when we compare his statement concern- 
ing this book and that of Wisdom, that they should be read for 
popular edification in life and manners, and not for the establishing 
of any doctrine in the church, we understand at once what mean- 
ing to attach to his laudatory notice of Ecclesiasticus. Epi- 
phanius, as Bellarmin admits, acknowledged no books but those 
which were found in the Hebrew canon, and Rome herself 
does not pretend that the apostolical constitutions are the inspired 
word of God. Yet, Epiphanius quotes them as Divine scrip- 
ture,\ a clear and triumphant proof that this phrase was by no 
means equivalent to inspired writings. One of the clearest pas- 
sages for illustrating the meaning of this phrase, is found in his 
disputation against ^Etius.§ He there enumerates the books 
which constitute the Hebrew canon, then the writings of the 
New Testament ; and having completed his account of the books 
that were inspired, he mentions Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and 
such like books as Divine scriptures. His object was to show 
that iEtius could defend his heresies neither from the books 
which the church admitted as inspired, nor from those other writ- 
ings upon religious subjects which were allowed to be read for 
the purpose of personal improvement. The very structure of 
the passage shows that he made a marked distinction between 
the Apocrypha and canonical books, though both were equally 
denominated Divine scripture. Cyprian, too, quotes the Apoc- 
rypha as sacred scripture, but at the same time he shows une- 
quivocally that he did not regard them as an authoritative stand- 
ard of faith. Having on one occasion cited a sentence from the 
book ofTobit, he proceeds to confirm it by the " testimony of 
truth" that is, by a passage from the Acts of the Apostles, a ca- 
nonical book, evidently implying, that though the Apocrypha 
were Divine scripture, they were not on that account, the word 
of God. || This same Father also cites the third and fourth books of 

* De Princip. ii. 1, opp. 1, p. 79. Cont. Cels. viii. opp. 1, p. 778, &c. 

t Epist. 34 ad Julian. J Haeres 80. 

§ Hreres 75. Cont. Mt. || De Oper. et Eleemos. 



238 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Esdras ; and the argument is just as strong that he regarded them 
as inspired, though Rome rejects them, as it is in favor of the 
books in question. 

There is another circumstance which, to my mind, settles 
the matter, that the ancients used the expressions which they 
apply to the Apocrypha, without intending to commend those 
documents as inspired. They make a distinction in the authority 
which w T as due to books that they expressly honored as Divine. 
It is evideut, that all truly inspired writings, Trent itself being 
witness, must be received with equal veneration and piety. 
There may be a difference in the value of the truths which are 
communicated in different books, but there can be no difference 
in authority when all proceed from the Father of lights, with 
whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. Inspiration 
secures a complete exemption from error, and the Divine testi- 
mony is entitled to the same consideration whether it be inter- 
posed to establish a primary or a secondary principle. When- 
ever God speaks, no matter what may be the subject on which 
He chooses to address us, His voice is entitled to absolute obe- 
dience, and we arenas much bound to believe what seems in itself 
to be of subordinate importance when He proclaims it, as we are to 
receive the weightier matters of the law. All inspired scripture, 
therefore, stands on the same footing of authority.* When, there- 



* This is well expressed by Bishop Marsh, Comp. View, p. 90. His words 
are as follows : 

" But it is really absurd to talk of a medium between canonical and unca- 
nonical, or of degrees of canonicity. Let us ask, what the church of England 
understands by a canonical book. This question is answered in the sixth ar- 
ticle. It is a book to which we may appeal in confirmation of doctrines. It 
belongs to the canon, or to the rule of faith. And the very same explanation 
is given in the corresponding decree of the council of Trent, namely : that 
which passed at the fourth session. For, after an enumeration of the books 
called sacred and canonical, (sacri et canonici,) the decree concludes with the 
observation, that the authorities above stated are those which the council pro- 
poses to use in confirmation of doctrines (in confirmandis dogmatibus). Every 
book, therefore, must either be, or not be, acknowledged as a work of authority 
for the establishment of doctrines. Between its absolute rejection and its ab- 
solute admission, there is no medium. When the question relates to the estab- 
lishment of doctrines, a book must have full authority for that purpose, or its 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 239 

fore, a writer treats one book as of less authority than another, it 
is equivalent to saying that the subordinate book is not inspired. 
Now the Fathers did treat books which they pronounced to be 
sacred and Divine, as of inferior authority, and, therefore, sacred 
and Divine with them must have been something very different 
from inspiration. Junilius, in his Treatise de Partibus Divines 
Legis, in speaking of the " authority of the Divine books" ex- 
pressly declares that " some are possessed of perfect authority, 
some middle, and some, of none at all." It is impossible that 
any Christian man, who had the least reverence for the testimony 
of God, could say of what He had revealed by His Spirit, that it 
possessed no authority at all. And yet Junilius, a Christian bish- 
op in the sixth century, asserts this of books, which, in his day, 
were received as holy and Divine. The conclusion is unavoida- 
ble, that in such connections, these words mean something very 
different from inspired. 

The testimony of Augustine is equally explicit in the matter. 
He was a member of that council of Carthage which is sup- 
posed to have canonized the Apocryphal books, and of course 
received them as Divine scripture. Speaking of the books of 
Maccabees, however, he justifies their reception by the church, 
chiefly on account of the moral tendency of the history. * It is plain 

authority is worth nothing. And hence, the council of Trent, very consistently, 
ascribed equal authority to them all. No writer, therefore, belonging to the 
church of Rome, could represent their authority as unequal, without impugning 
that decree of the council of Trent." 

To the same purport is the following declaration of Lindanus in Panoplia 
Evang. as quoted by Rainold, Cens. Lib. Apoc. vol. i. p. 203. 

" Eos impio se sacrilegio contaminare, qui in Scripturarum Christianarum 
corpore,quosdam quasi gradus authoritatis conantur locare quodunam,eandem- 
que spiritus sancti vocem impio humanes stultitise discerniculo audent in varias 
impares discerpere ac distribuere authoritatis classes." 

They pollute themselves with impious sacrilege, who attempt to establish, in 
the body of the Christian Scriptures, certain different degrees of authority. 
That one and the same voice of the Holy Spirit they dare, by impiou^ petty 
distinctions of human folly, to distribute into various and unequal classes of 
authority. 

* Augustine says : " Hanc Scripturam quse appellatur Macchabseorum, non 
habent Judsei sicut Legem et ProphetasetPsalmos quibus Dominus testimonium 
perhibit. Sed rcccpta est ab ecclesia non inutiliter, si sobrie legatur et audiatur. 



240 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

that he could not have regarded them as inspired, since their 
inspiration would have been the strongest of all possible reasons 
for receiving them. He receives them only because they might 
be profitably read and heard, and they were Divine in no other 
sense than as being subservient to the purpose of edification and 
improvement. 

As, now, such phrases as Divine scripture are confessedly 
ambiguous, as a meaning may be put upon them justified by the 
nature of the words and by ancient usage, quite distinct from 
that of inspiration ; it certainly devolves upon those who adduce 
the adoption of such expressions by the ancient Fathers as sus- 
taining the decision of the council of Trent, to prove unanswer- 
ably that Divine scripture and inspired scripture are uniformly 
used as synonymous terms by the early writers, or their whole ar- 
gument falls to the ground. It is one thing to assert that books 
are Divine, in the sense that they may be profitably read or de- 
voutly studied ; it is quite another to affirm that their authors 
wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 

The issue betwixt us and Rome is on the point of inspira- 
tion. She affirms that God is the author of these books, and we 
deny it. The question is not whether the primitive churches 
read them or not, whether the early Fathers quoted them or not, 
or whether they regarded them as instructive or not, or whether 
they pronounced them Divine or not ; the question is, was God 
their author? And while this is the issue, the Romanist only 
exposes himself and his cause to contempt, by elaborate proofs 
of what no Protestant would deem it of any importance to dis- 
pute with him. 

It would be well for you to bear in mind, what you will find 
strikingly illustrated in the offices of Tully,* the marked differ- 
ence between the looseness of popular language and the accura- 
cy of scientific disquisition. As the primitive church entertain- 
ed no doubts of the exclusive claims of the Hebrew canon, as 

maxime propter illos Macchabasos qui pro Dei lege sicut veri rnartyres a perse- 
cutoribus tarn indigna atque horrenda perpessi sunt." — Cont. Gavdent. Donai, 
Lib. i. c.31. 

* De Off. lib. ii. c. 10, 






APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 241 

this was a settled matter, there was no danger of being misunder- 
stood in employing words in a general sense, which had a pecu- 
liar and emphatic application only to a particular class of books. 
They were not likely to mislead, any more than to cite the 
Apocrypha now as belonging to the Old Testament, would be 
construed into a recognition of their Divine authority, or to speak 
of Watts, Hervey, Owen and Newton as holy men, illustrious di- 
vines and spiritual writers, would be regarded as tantamount to the 
assertion that they were supernaturally inspired. All the epithets 
with which we distinguish the sacred scriptures have a loose 
and popular as well as a strict and scientific sense ; and hence, 
the mere use of the words determines nothing as to the charac- 
ter of the writings. An argument constructed upon this founda- 
tion, would prove too much even for Rome : it would authorize 
Barnabas, Clement, Ignatius, the Apocryphal book of Isaiah, the 
book of Henoch, and the third and fourth books of Esdras, the 
writings of Augustine, the canons of councils and the decrees of 
Popes, to claim a place in the same category with Moses, the 
Prophets, the Psalms, Evangelists and Apostles. All these re- 
jected documents were quoted by the Fathers, quoted distinctly 
as scripture, in some instances, as Divine, scripture, and what is 
still more remarkable as Divinely inspired scripture. This is the 
language which Nicholas* employs in regard to the Fathers, and 
which Cyrilt applies to the council of Nice. 

It may be, therefore, regarded as indisputably settled, that 
Divine scripture, and such like expressions, were not equivalent 
to a proper name for the canonical books. 

If, therefore, we wish to ascertain what were the sentiments 
of the primitive church in relation to the extent of the canon, we 
must appeal to more definite sources of information, than a col- 
lection of passages which may be just as accurately interpreted 
to mean that the disputed books were religious in opposition to 
profane, as that they were inspired in opposition to human. 
Loose and popular expressions are not the proper materials for 
an argument of this sort. Incidental statements, occasionally 

* Epist. ad Michael. Imp. (Rainold. vol. i. p. 201.) 
t De Trinitate, Lib. i. (Rainold. vol. i. p. 201.) 



242 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

dropped in the midst of discourses upon other matters, do not 
constitute the testimony of the primitive church. That should, 
manifestly, be sought in those places of the ancient writers, in 
which they were professedly treating of the standard of faith, 
and avow it as their design to set forth the books which were re- 
ceived as supernaturally inspired. We have numerous passages 
in which these books are the subject of discussion ; we have di- 
vers catalogues, made by different writers and at different times, 
during the first four centuries, of all the documents which the 
church received as the rule of faith, in different forms and un- 
der different circumstances ; the whole matter is repeatedly 
brought before us, we have line upon line, precept on precept, 
here a little and there a little ; and in such passages, and such pas- 
sages alone, I insist upon it, is the testimony of the primitive 
church to be sought. In those parts of the Patristical remains 
where it is the express purpose of the writer to declare what 
books were believed to be of God, we may expect precision, ac- 
curacy and care. The witness is put upon the stand, answers, 
as it were, under oath, and guards his phraseology, provided he 
be honest, so as to convey an adequate impression of the truth. 
The astronomer speaks in popular language of the sun's rising 
and setting, and pursuing his course through the heavens, and yet 
it would be preposterous to charge him with denying the elemen- 
tary principles of his science or teaching a system that has long 
been exploded, because he had employed expressions, which, 
though sufficiently exact for the ordinary intercourse of life, 
were not philosophically precise. So, in a loose and familiar ac- 
ceptation, the primitive Fathers speak of the Apocrypha, as Di- 
vine scripture, intending to convey no other idea but that they 
belonged to a class of religious literature, and might be profita- 
bly studied for personal improvement, and it is equally preposter- 
ous from such general expressions, to infer that they taught the 
supernatural inspiration of the books. For the real opinions of 
the astronomer, you would appeal to his language when he was 
professedly treating of the heavenly bodies ; then you would ex- 
pect him to weigh his w T ords, to avoid the looseness of popular 
discourse, and to employ no terms which were not sufficiently 
just. So for the real opinions of the Fathers upon the subject of 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 243 

the canon, we should appeal to their statements when they pro- 
fessedly give us an accurate account or formal catalogue of the 
inspired works. Then we should expect them to use terms 
in a strictly scientific sense; and if, in such connections, th^. 
Apocrypha were ever introduced as a part of the word of God, 
there would be something like testimony in behalf of the preten- 
sions of Rome. But it is worthy of remark, that, in every case 
in which the ancient writers used the terms scripture, and 
Divine scripture, in their restricted and emphatic application, in 
all instances in which they are professedly treating of the canon 
of inspiration, they never extend them to the Apocrypha. In 
none of the catalogues which they have given us of the books 
which God has graciously imparted as the rule of faith, are these 
spurious records to be found. The voice of Christian antiquity 
accords with the voice of the Jewish church, and both combine 
to condemn the arrogance and blasphemy of Trent. 

Nothing, sir, can reveal more clearly the desperate extremi- 
ties to which you are driven in support of a sinking cause^ than 
that, instead of giving those plain, pointed and direct statements 
which the Fathers themselves intended to be, and which common 
sense suggests must be, their testimony upon the subject, you 
hunt up and down through all the remains of antiquity, and pre- 
serve your soul from absolute despair by seizing, here and there, 
upon a few popular expressions, which, by being tortured into a 
special and restricted sense, may be made to look with some de- 
gree of favor on your claims. You never seem to be aware of 
the egregious absurdity of bending the accurate to the loose, in- 
stead of the loose to the accurate. Upon the same principle, if 
you should meet with a passage in the private and confidential 
letter of a man of science, in which he employed the language 
of the vulgar, you would at once construe it into the true expo- 
sition of his system, and make his philosophical treatises succumb 
to his popular expressions. 

There is an apparent discrepancy, and that must be reconciled 
by torturing philosophy and dignifying the dialect of the vulgar. 

If, sir, there existed an apparent inconsistency between the 
statements of a witness, publicly given, when he stood forth in 
the face of the world to make his deposition, and incidental ex- 



244 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

• 

pressions, touching the matter in dispute, dropped from him in the 
course of conversation upon other subjects, would you feel bound, 
if you regarded him as a man of veracity who would not really 
contradict himself, to explain his professed testimony by his loose 
conversation, or to reconcile his loose conversation with his pro- 
fessed testimony ? Which would you regard as the standard by 
which the other was to be measured ? Which, in other words, 
would be what might be properly called his testimony ? It is 
certainly the dictate of common sense to explain the loose by the 
accurate. 

Cicero, in one of his philosophical treatises, in conformity 
with the example of illustrious predecessors, maintained that he 
who possessed one of the virtues must necessarily possess them 
all. In a popular work, he subsequently remarked that a man 
might be just without being prudent. Here appeared to be a 
discrepancy, and upon your principles of criticism, the true 
method of explaining it was to deny that he held prudence to be 
a virtue. The philosopher, however, has solved the difficulty 
himself, by assuring us that there was no real inconsistency, 
since, in the one case, the terms were employed with precision 
and accuracy, and in the other, with popular laxness. " Alia est 
ilia," says he, and it would be well for you to remember the re- 
mark, " cum Veritas ipsa limatur in disputatione, subtilitas : alia, 
cum ad opinionem communem omnis accommodatur oratio." 

If the plain and obvious principles, which I have briefly sug- 
gested, be applied to the criticism of the ancient documents 
which have survived the ravages of time, we shall find that there 
is not a single record of the first four centuries, which sustains 
the decision of Trent. The unbroken testimony of that whole 
period is clearly, decidedly, unanswerably, against that unparal- 
leled deed of atrocity and guilt. And how else can it be regard- 
ed but as a downright insult to the understandings of men, 
when the formal catalogues of the primitive church are produced, 
when the passages are brought forward in which the best and 
noblest champions of the faith undertake professedly to recount 
the books of the canon, when they come forward for the express 
purpose of bearing testimony in the matter before us, how else 
can it be regarded but as a downright insult to the understand- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 245 

ings of men, to tell us that this is not the voice of antiquity, that 
these recorded statements are not the true statements of the case, 
because it so happens that other books besides those included in 
the lists of inspiration, were not treated as absolutely heathenish 
and profane. For this, as we have seen, when fairly interpreted, 
is the real amount of the testimony in favor of the Apocrypha. 
The ancient church treated them as religious and edifying 
books, just precisely as the modern church regards the composi- 
tions of Howe, Owen and Scott. Therefore, we are gravely 
told, they must be inspired. 

When I reflect upon your whole course of argument upon 
this subject, I can hardly persuade myself that you are able to 
peruse your own lucubrations without losing your gravity. 

You set out with the purpose of proving that Christ and his 
apostles had delivered the Apocrypha to the Christian church as 
inspired documents. This was a perfectly plain and intelligible 
proposition; it respected a simple matter of fact, the legitimate 
proof of which was credible testimony, and we had a right to 
expect that you would produce some record of the apostles, in 
which it was directly stated, or some authentic evidence from 
those who were cotemporary with them, that such was the case. 
But these reasonable expectations are excited only to be blasted. 
Nothing of the sort appears in any part of your letters ; but as if 
in mockery of our hopes, you put us off with a series of quota- 
tions, which, allowing them all the weight that can possibly be 
given to them, prove nothing more than the existence of the books 
in the apostolic age. Then we are to infer, it would seem, 
that Christ and his apostles delivered the Apocrypha to the 
Christian church as inspired, because the books existed in the 
apostolic age. But hold ! You have, perhaps, some stronger 
reasons in reserve. The primitive church believed them to be 
inspired ; therefore, beyond all question, they must be inspired. 
Now, granting what I am unable to perceive, the legitimacy of 
your therefore, in the present case, how does it appear that such 
was the faith of the primitive church? This point, you inform 
us, is as clear as noonday, for the Fathers of the ancient church 
actually quoted these very books, and pronounced them to be 
useful and edifying compositions. This is demonstration plain 



246 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

and irrefragable as holy writ, and he who cannot see the proofs 
of inspiration in conduct of this kind, must be a stubborn and 
refractory spirit that deserves the damnation which Trent has 
denounced. The substance of your letters may be embodied in 
the following beautiful sorites : 

The Apocrypha were quoted by the primitive church. 

Whatever it quoted it believed to be inspired. 

Whatever it believed to be inspired, it had received from the 
hands of Christ and his apostles. 

Therefore the Apocrypha were delivered to the church by 
Christ and his apostles as inspired documents. 



LETTER XVI 



Examination of Testimonies. 



That the reader may distinctly apprehend how slender is the 
basis upon which the church of Rome has erected her porten- 
tous additions to the Scriptures, I proceed to examine, in detail, 
the various testimonies upon which you have relied to prove the 
inspiration of the Apocrypha. This task, it is true, is, in a great 
degree, unnecessary, since it has already been conclusively de- 
monstrated that your method of procedure is deceitful and falla- 
cious. But as in the weakness of your attempted refutation, you 
have only shown the strength of the position, that within the pe- 
riod embraced in this discussion, the first four centuries of the 
Christian era, not a single writer can be found who regarded 
these documents as the word of God, it may be of service to the 
interests of righteousness to cross-examine your witnesses one by 
one, and to show, as the result, that upon the subject of the books 
of the canon, the voice of antiquity is harmonious and clear. 
Still, however, it deserves to be remarked, that if you had been 
as successful as you evidently hoped to be, in establishing the 
fact that the primitive Fathers, to whom you have appealed, co- 






APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 247 

incided upon this point with the Council of Trent, your original 
proposition would not have been sustained. Your purpose was 
to prove that Christ or his apostles had given to the Christian 
church the authority, of which, according to you, the Jews were 
not possessed, to insert these books into the sacred canon. It 
was testimony in behalf of this fact, of which you were in quest, 
and such testimony you cannot surely pretend to have produced 
in the beggarly quotations with which you have amused us. 
Since, however, you have failed, signally failed, as a slight inves- 
tigation will render indubitable, in your laborious endeavors to 
prove that the canon of the Fathers was the same with the can- 
on of Rome, how disgraceful and overwhelming must be your 
defeat whenever you shall condescend to undertake the discus- 
sion oT the other, your main and leading proposition ! 

1. The first writer of the second century to whom you have 
appealed, is Justin Martyr. You produce a passage from the 
first Apology, which Justin himself professes to have borrowed 
from the books of Moses, but which you are certain, in defiance 
of his own unequivocal assertion, must have been condensed 
from a corresponding passage in the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of 
Sirach. It is not, therefore, a question between you and me, but 
a question between you and the father himself, whether or not he 
has quoted the Apocrypha. In the midst of proof of the moral 
agency of man and a consequent refutation of the dangerous and 
absurd pretensions of libertines and fatalists, Justin observes : 
" The Holy Prophetic Spirit taught us these things, having said 
through Moses, that God spoke thus to the first formed man : Be- 
hold, before you are good and evil, choose the good."* " It 
might seem," you inforrn us in your curious and amusing criti- 
cism upon this passage, "that St. Justin thought that Moses de- 
clares God spoke thus to Adam ; but in his writings he appears 
too well acquainted with the Scriptures and to have studied the 
account of the creation too accurately, to commit such a mistake. 
I have not the means," you continue, " of discovering whether 



* EJ«<5a>£ Kai rj^ag ravra tj ayiov irpo^riKOv nvs:vj.ia Sia IS/loocecog (pqaav rw irpurto 
-ir\aaO£VTi avOputno eipricrOaL airo rov Oecv ovrcoc, tSov irpo irpoacoTrov gov to ayadov Kai to 

kglkov- £kX^<il to ayadov. Apol. i. §44. p. 69. Paris edition, 1742. 



248 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

there be any grounds for supposing some error of the manuscript 
in recording the name, or whether we are forced to say that he 
meant that Moses gives us an account of the creation and of the 
facts, though he does not record the words which elsewhere the 
Holy and Prophetic Spirit testifies were spoken, or that St. 
Justin, in fine, erred in memory, confounding one part of Scrip- 
ture with another. This much is certain, that the words attribu- 
ted by him to the Holy and Prophetic Spirit, are found in Eccle- 
siasticus xv., from which they are evidently condensed. 

It is not a little singular that the holy Father should have 
been too accurately acquainted with the Scriptures to commit 
the mistake, if indeed a mistake it can be called, which his 
words most obviously seem to imply, and yet, at the same time, 
have possessed a memory so treacherous and erring as to con- 
found one part of Scripture with another. The question, too, 
might naturally be asked, why, if the memory only were in fault, 
it is not just as likely that Justin has confounded what Moses is 
, recorded to have said in the fifteenth and nineteenth verses of the 
thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy to his assembled countrymen, 
with what God announced to the progenitor of the race, as that 
he has mistaken the son of Sirach for the author of the Penta- 
teuch. As there exists not a particle of evidence that the 
name of Moses has been corruptly foisted into the text, we are 
compelled to acknowledge that the good father, even if he had 
really, though unconsciously, condensed the passage in question 
from the corresponding passage in the Wisdom of Jesus, treats 
it as inspired, and ascribes it to the Holy Prophetic Spirit, not 
because it is found in Ecclesiasticus, but because he supposed it 
had been written by the Jewish Legislator. The words are cer- 
tainly contained in the Pentateuch, though not in the connec- 
tion in which they are quoted by Justin. Moses nowhere says, 
totidem verbis, that God employed such language to the father 
of the race, but he distinctly teaches what is equivalent to it: 
that Adam was placed under a legal dispensation, in which life 
was promised as the reward of obedience, and death threatened 
as the penalty of transgression. As such a dispensation might 
be conveniently described in the very words which Justin has 
quoted, and as Moses actually employed them in the thirtieth 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 249 

chapter of the book of Deuteronomy,* it is no rash presumption 
to suppose that they were simply accommodated, in the passage 
before us, to express the condition in which man was placed, as 
Paul accommodates a portion of the same chapter in his beauti- 
ful description of the economy of grace. t The point which Jus- 
tin had in view, was to prove the freedom of the human will, a 
point necessarily involved in a state of probation, and which, 
therefore, would be sufficiently established by showing what 
Moses had unquestionably taught, that man was made the subject of 
law. " It appears from the Scriptures," — he would say, if I may 
be allowed to paraphrase his meaning — "it appears from the 
Scriptures, that man is a responsible, voluntary agent, because, 
when originally formed by God, it was made to depend upon his 
own choice, upon the free decisions of his own will, whether he 
should be eternally happy or miserable — life and death were set 
before him — an easy probation was assigned him — and hence it 
follows that the power of election necessarily belonged to him. 
The very language which Moses employed in a different connec- 
tion, so exactly describes the nature of the trial to which our first 
Father was subjected, that it may fitly be considered as the terms 
in which God addressed him, when he set before him the bless- 
ing and the curse, in the garden of Eden.":}: If this view of the 
passage be correct, there is evidently no necessity of contradict- 
ing the statements of Justin himself, and of making him quote 
from one book when he professes to have borrowed from another. 
You hare consequently not succeeded, and I may venture to 
assert that you will never succeed in bringing up a single excep- 
tion to the sweeping remark of Bishop Cosin, that Justin Martyr, 
" in all his works, citeth not so much as any one passage out of 
the Apocryphal boohs, nor maketh the least mention of them at 
all" This is certainly astonishing, since in his Dialogue with 
Trypho, the Jew, the subject invited him to incidental notices of 
the conduct and temper of the Jewish people in regard to the 
Scriptures. Though you are right in supposing that quotations 

* Verses 15 and 19. t Vide Romans x. 6, 7, 8. 

X The Editor of Justin has accordingly remarked, in a note upon the pas- 
sage — " Si sensus consideretur, satis haec congruunt cum lis quae Deus Adamo 
dixit." 

12 



250 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

in that conference from the Apocryphal works, as authoritative 
decisions of the matters in dispute, would have been inadmissible, 
yet it was manifestly not out of place to expose the hardness of 
heart and blindness of mind which persevered in the rejection of 
inspired documents, after satisfactory proof had been furnished 
that they proceeded from God. Justin reproaches the Jews with 
their obduracy and malice, with their deliberate contempt of 
the light of truth, and their fraudulent suppression of Messianic 
texts in the Prophets and the Psalms,* but not a syllable does he 
whisper of what would have been still more conclusive proof of 
their terrible fatuity, not a syllable does he whisper of their sup- 
pressing, in addition to single passages and isolated texts, whole 
books of the Bible. This is strange, if the Jews indeed had been 
guilty of such an atrocity. So much for the testimony of Justin. 

2. Your next witness is Irengeus of Lyons. You produce 
passages from him in which it is conceded that he quotes the 
Apocryphal bocks of Wisdom, and of Baruch, and the corrupt 
additions to the prophecy of Daniel. f 

As, however, he introduces his quotations with no expres- 
sions of peculiar respect or religious veneration which show that 
the sentiment is not simply accommodated because it accords 
with the judgment of the writer, but is received with deference 
and reverential submission as an authoritative statement of di- 
vine truth ; as Irenaeus drops no hint of any uncommon or extra- 
ordinary regard for the documents in question, beyond what he 
felt for other works, and works confessedly of human composi- 
tion, of which he has also availed himself; I am wholly at a loss 
to determine what use you can possibly make of his testimony. 
Where does he say that these books are supernaturally inspired 
— that they constitute a part of the Rule of Faith — an integral 
portion of the written revelation which God has given of his 
wilH What language does he apply to them, from which it can 
be gathered that he looked upon them as posessed of equal author- 

* Vide Conference with Trypho, § 72, 73, for a specimen of these charges 
of fraudulent dealing with the Scriptures. 

t Wisdom vi. 20 is quoted Contra Haeres. Lib.iv. cap. '33. Baruch iv. 36, 
37, is quoted, Lib. v. cap. 35. Baruch v. entire is quoted, Lib. v. cap. 36. The 
story of Susannah is quoted, Lib. iv. cap. 26. Bel] and the Dragon, Lib. iv. 
cap. 5. 



i 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 251 

ity and entitled to equal veneration with the Law, the Prophets 
and the Psalms ? If the mere fact that Irenaeus has quoted them, 
is sufficient to canonize Wisdom, Baruch, and the additions to 
Daniel, Rome must considerably enlarge her canon, since the 
same argument would embrace in its sweeping conclusion divers 
other books, which have never been esteemed as supernaturally 
inspired. In the sixth chapter of his book against heresies, he 
quotes a passage from Justin Martyr, and endorses the sentiment 
as fully and completely as in any of the cases in which he ap- 
peals to the Apocrypha.* In the twenty-eighth chapter of the 
fifth book of the same great work, a sentence is introduced from 
Ignatius's epistle to the Romans,f and in the fourth chapter of 
the fourth book, a nameless author is commended, \ who is prob- 
ably the same that Eusebius denominates an apostolical Presby- 
ter. But what is most striking and remarkable of all, in the 
twentieth chapter of the fourth book, the Shepherd of Hermas is 
not only quoted, but quoted distinctively as Scripture. § Now 
are we to infer that Justin, Ignatius and Hermas, all wrote as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; or shall we not rather con- 
clude that the argument from Irenaeus, proves too much, and 
therefore, upon logical principles, is absolutely worthless ? 

* Ktu KaXoog lovaripog ev to vpog IS/lapKiova cvvray^ari cbrjaiv' on avro to Kvpico 
ov6' av eireio-Qeiev, aWov Qeov KarayyeWovn rrapa iov Sripiovpyov . . . We cannot 
complete the passage from Justin, since his own work has suffered more terribly 
from the ravages of time than even that of Irenaeus. The Latin is as follows : 
Et bene Justinus in eo libro qui est ad Marcionem ait : Quoniam ipsi quoque 
Domino non credidissem, alterum Deum annuntianti, praeter fabricatorem et 
factorem et nutritorem nostrum. Beautifully says Justin in his Treatise against 
Marcion, " I would not believe even the Lord Himself announcing another God 
beside our Maker, Architect and Preserver." 

t Qg enrs Tig tov rj[i£-EpcoV) Sia rr\v npog Qeov [xapTvpiav KaraKpiQetg rrpog Q-qpia' otl 
atrog eifju Qeov, kcu Ji' oSovtov Grjiiov aA/jflj^cu, iva KaQapog nprog evpeQo. As said 
one of ours, condemned to the wild beasts on account of his testimony for God, 
" I am the bread of God, and am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may 
be found pure bread.'' 

t Et bene qui dixit ipsum immensum Patrem in Filio mensuratum ; mensura 
enim Patris, Filius, quoniam et capit eum. Well has one observed, that the 
Immense Father is measured in the Son — the Son is the measure of the Father, 
since he contains him. 

§ KaAeo? ovv enrev rj ypacpi] rj \eyoxai' -ptorov Tcavrcov Trurr£v<rov,OTi elg eonv o Qeog, 
o -a iravTa Krtoag kcu Karaonaag Kat Toir\(7ag tK rov \xr\ ovrog eig to en at to, iravra. 



252 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

If you should object that Baruch is quoted under the name 
of Jeremiah, and the additions to Daniel, under the name of 
that prophet, you yourself have supplied us with the materials of 
solving the difficulty. " The book of Baruch was at that time 
joined to the book of Jeremiah, " and consequently, the name of 
the prophet must have been used in reference to the book. It 
was the title of the work in the Alexandrine versions which 
were then in use. Those, therefore, who appealed to it, under 
that title, no more expressed the belief that Jeremiah composed 
it, than those who refer to the preaching of Peter, imply the con- 
viction that Peter was its author. Huetius informs us that in the 
ancient list of the books of the Bible, which served as a guide to the 
copyists in their labor of transcription, the name of Baruch was 
not introduced, but that his work was embraced under the title of 
Jeremiah* The stories of Susannah, and of Bel and the Dragon, 
in the same way, were joined to the prophecy of Daniel, and 
were consequently quoted under the general name of the book. 
As we cannot for a moment suppose that Irenaeus was so stupid 
as really to believe that Jeremiah was the author of a work which 
in its very first sentence professed to be written by another 
man, it is indisputably clear that the name of the prophet is no 
otherwise employed than as the distinctive designation of the 
book, and consequently the use of it determines nothing in refer- 
ence to the question whether or not Baruch was regarded as an 
inspired production. Jeremiah and Daniel, in the quotations of 
Irenaeus, being used only in a titular sense, the quotations them- 
selves afford not a particle of proof touching the point which you 
introduced them to establish. 

3. You next entertain us with a series of passages from Clem- 
ent of Alexandria; and the number might have been greatly in- 
creased — in which, because he cites Ecclesiasticus and Tobias 
under the title of Scripture ; appeals to Wisdom as the work of 
Solomon, and distinguishes it, moreover, by the epithet Divine ; 
quotes Baruch under the name of Jeremiah, and honors it, in ad- 



* Librarii volumina sacra enscribentes, in eorum indice Baruchi nomen non 
reperient qui sub Jeremiffi titulo continebatur, Demonstratio de Prophet. 
Baruch. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 253 

dition, as Divine scripture, you would have us infer that he re- 
garded these works as an integral portion of the canon of Faith. 
The number and variety of the quotations occurring in Clement 
from the apocryphal documents should be no matter of surprise, 
when we call to mind the peculiar esteem in which they were 
held by the Jews in the city of his residence and labors, sur- 
rounded as he was by those who revered them as monuments of 
their national history — the history of a people whom God had 
distinguished as his chosen inheritance, and who had prepared 
the way for that glorious dispensation in which Clement rejoiced — 
it was not to be presumed that he would be entirely exempt from 
the general sentiment, especially when he found that some of 
these books, in the midst of many defects, were largely impreg- 
nated with the spirit of devotion. He would naturally be led to 
treat them with the same partiality which the Jews entertained 
for them. As to them had been committed the oracles of God, 
and the canon of inspiration had been received at their hands, 
his feeling in regard to other books preserved among this same 
extraordinary people, would obviously take its complexion from 
them. He would consequently be led — not to regard the apoc- 
rypha as inspired, for the Jews never did it — but to treat them 
as religious and devout compositions, to study them for the pur- 
pose of personal improvement, to read them in the same way 
in which Baxter and Owen and Howe are perused in the mod- 
ern church, and to adorn his writings with contributions levied 
from their stores, as Protestant Divines appeal to the works of 
standard though uninspired authors. The ambiguous titles of 
commendation and respect which Clement applies to them, it 
has already been demonstrated, do not involve the belief of in- 
spiration- — epithets equally distinctive and laudatory he does not 
scruple to bestow upon divers other books # which make no pre- 
tensions to a place in the canon — some of which indeed were 
genuine — others grossly spurious — others still absolutely heathen- 
ish — books, which, though Clement has quoted and commended, 
he distinctly intimates were possessed of no authority as an in- 
spired rule of faith. 

* Eusebius, H. E. Lib. vi. c. 13. 



254 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

If, now, it can be shown that the principle upon which you 
have made this father endorse the inspiration of Wisdom and 
Tobias, Ecclesiasticus and Baruch, will also canonize Barnabas 
and Hermas, Clement of Rome, and, if not the Gospels according 
to the Hebrews and Egyptians, yet certainly the preaching of 
Peter, the fourth book of Esdras, and even the pretended verses 
of the Sibyl, every candid mind must acknowledge that your 
argument is worthless, and that the same titles which are com- 
monly employed, in introducing quotations from the canonical 
books, may also be applied to other works which are confessedly 
destitute of any claim to a supernatural origin. 

1. Barnabas is repeatedly cited * in the books of the Stromata, 
and in three distinct instances receives the very appellation of 
authority which Clement usually bestows upon Paul. He is not 
only called the Apostle Barnabas, but, in one remarkable 
passage, seems to be treated, like the oath of confirmation, as 
an end of strife, f " For this," says Clement, " I need not use 
many words, but only to allege the testimony of the apostolic 
Barnabas, who was one of the seventy and fellow-laborer of 
Paul." Now, if there ever was an officer in the Christian Church 
entitled to command the faith and to bind the consciences of 
men, that officer was the Apostle. Paul usually commences his 
Epistles with a distinct assertion of his Apostolic office, and the 
church itself is erected " on the foundation of the prophets and 
apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief-corner stone." 
To the apostles the promise was originally made that the Holy 
Spirit should be imparted as a Divine Teacher, who should guide 
them into all truth, and bring to their remembrance the instruc- 
tions of the Son. To call a man an apostle, therefore, would 

* Stromat. Lib. ii. cap. 6 (sub fine), EtKorcos ovv 6 AttootoXos' "Bapva@a$ <pr)criv 
— " Rightly, therefore, says the Apostle Barnabas." This is precisely the form 
in which Clement sometimes quotes the inspired writers. For example, a pas- 
sage from the Psalms is thus introduced, Strom. Lib. ii. c. 15: Eikotw ovv 
(j>ri<nv b Upocprirw — " Rightly, therefore, says the Prophet." For other quotations 
from Barnabas, see Strom, ii. 18, v. 10, ii. 15. 

t Strom, ii. 20: Ov poi Set T:\eiovoiv \oyu)v t Trapa9e;x£i>w (xapTW tov airocrroXiicov 

Bapvafiap, &c. It is remarkable that in this passage, as the context will show, 
Barnabas seems to be quoted to prove a doctrine. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 255 

seem to be equivalent to pronouncing him inspired, It was an 
office furnished with the gift of supernatural wisdom and infalli- 
ble knowledge ; and yet Clement does not scruple to distinguish 
" the fellow-laborer of Paul" with this high title of authority. 
Did Clement believe that Barnabas was actually inspired? Let 
a single fact answer the question. He contradicts * the exposi- 
tion which Barnabas had given of the Mosaic prohibition — " thou 
shalt not eat of the hyena nor the hare," — which, says Cotele- 
rius, " he would by no means have done, if he had believed 
that Barnabas was entitled to a place in the canon." 

The epithet apostle — the distinguishing title of the inspired 
founders of the church — must consequently have been applied to 
him in an inferior and subordinate sense. To me it seems self- 
evident, that to call a book scripture, is no stronger proof of in- 
spiration than to affirm that it was written by an apostle. In 
fact, it is much more likely that such a general term as scripture, 
in its own nature applicable to every variety of composition, 
should be promiscuously employed, than that an official designa- 
tion of the highest rank should be attributed to those who posses- 
sed none of the extraordinary endowments that give a right to 
the title. As then uninspired men among the ancient writers 
were unquestionably denominated apostles, it is not incredible that 
uninspired books should have been in like mannner denominated 
scripture. 



* " There is no inconsiderable proof to be made out of the works of Clemens 
Alexandrinus himself, that he did not look upon this Epistle (Barnabas's) as 
having any manner of authority, but on the contrary took the liberty to contra- 
dict and oppose it. One instance will be sufficient. In Paedag. Lib. ii. c. 10, 
p. 188, he cites the explication of Barnabas on that law of Moses — thou shalt 
not eat of the hyena nor the hare — that is, not be like those animals in their 
lascivious qualities. He does not, indeed, name Barnabas as in other places ; 
but nothing can be more evident than that he refers to the Epistle of Barnabas, 
ch. x. After which he adds, that though he doubted not but Moses designed a 
prohibition of adultery by prohibiting these animals, ov fxev ra rrjSe efyyrjaei row 
(7Vjji0o\iKCi)g siprjusvojv cvyKoTiOefxaiy yet he could not agree with the symbolical 
explication some gave of the place, viz., that the hyena changes its sex yearly. 
and is sometimes male, and sometimes female, as Barnabas. After which he 
largely disputes the fact." Jones on Can. Part iii. c. 40. 



256 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

2. Clement of Rome is also quoted* in the Stromata, and 
quoted as an apostle. Upon your principle of reasoning, accord- 
ingly, his Epistle to the Corinthians ought to be inserted in the 
sacred library of the church. 

3. But how will you dispose of the Shepherd of Hernias? It 
was evidently a favorite with Clement, and is sometimes describ- 
ed in language which, if you had found it in connection with 
Wisdom, and Tobias, Ecclesiasticus and Baruch, you would per- 
haps have paraded as triumphant proof of their Divine authority. 
Let me call your attention to two remarkable passages. In the 
twenty-ninth chapter of the first book of Stromata, a quotation is 
introduced from the Shepherd in these words :t " Divinely, 
therefore, says the power which speaks to Hernias by revelation." 
Again, at the close of the first chapter of the second book,f an- 
other quotation is introduced in terms almost as strong : " The 
power that appeared in vision to Hernias, says." Now here is a 
power which speaks divinely, reveals things in visions, and per- 
forms the offices in regard to Hermas which are described in the 
same words with the supernatural communications of the Holy 
Ghost to the prophets. Did Clement mean to assert that the 
Pastor of Hermas was an inspired production ? Most unquestion- 
ably not ;§ and yet he has employed no language in reference to 
any of the books of the Apocrypha, which is more explicit, more 
pointed, or more decided than the commendations lavished on the 
Shepherd. You say that Wisdom must be inspired, because Cle- 
ment calls it divine Wisdom, but Hermas, also, according to him, 
speaks divinely. Nay the argument for Hermas is far more 
powerful. He not "only speaks divinely, he speaks by revelation, 



* Strom. Lib. i. C. 7 : Avtiko. b KX^cv? tv rrj irpos K.opiv9tovs cthotoXij, Kara 

"Xe^iVj <pr]<rt — "As Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians says." Again, 
Strom, iv. C. 17 : Nat [xtjv tv rrj rrpos K.optv6iovg tmctToAr} b AttogtoXos KA^ju£»/j — 
" the apostle Clement in the Epistle to the Corinthians." 

t Oetcjg Totvvv rj Svvafxis r\ rw Epjua Kara airoKaXvipiv \d\ovaa. 

t <&r)<ri yap tv ra> opa/Aari to) Ep/m r} Swapis, ri (pavenra. 

§ That the Shepherd of Hermas never was received as canonical, may be 
gathered from the following testimonies: Euseb. H. E. Lib. iii. c. 3, 25 ; Ter- 
tull. de Oratione c. 12 ; Origen Horn. viii. in Numeros, x. in Jos., i. in Psalm. 
37 ; Athanasius de Decret. Nicaenae Synod, in Epistola Pasch. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 257 

he declares things which have been opened in visions, and re- 
ceives communications from the lips of an angel, like Daniel in 
his prophecy and John in the Apocalypse. 

4. The Preaching of Peter, a document which Clement must 
have known to be apocryphal, he not only cites, but cites dis- 
tinctly under the name of the Apostle. His most usual form of 
quotation is, " Peter says in the Preachings," or simply, " Peter 
says," when there had been a previous mention of the book.* 
Now upon the same principles of criticism from which you have 
inferred that Clement received Wisdom as the work of Solomon, 
it must also be maintained that he regarded the Preaching as a 
genuine production of the Apostle. The argument is just as 
strong in the one case as it is in the other. Because a passage is 
introduced from Wisdom, and treated without scruple as a say- 
ing of Solomon, you boldly conclude that Solomon was declared 
to be the author of the book, but precisely the same is done in 
reference to Peter and the apocryphal work which bears the title 
of his Preaching. I presume, however, that you will not think 
of contending that the holy Father looked upon the Preaching as 
a part of the canon, which he certainly must have done if he be- 
lieved it to be composed by one of the original Apostles. His 
meaning, you would probably inform us, is evidently nothing 
more than this, " Peter is represented as saying" in a book 
which is known by the title of his Preaching. On the same 
ground it may be said, that in similar quotations from Wisdom all 
that the father intended to assert was, that Solomon is represented 
to have said in a book which is distinguished by his name. In 
other words, in both instances the documents are quoted accord- 
ing to their titles. 

5. If the principle be true which you have assumed as the 
basis of your argument throughout this discussion — if the princi- 
ple be true that whatever books are quoted by the Fathers in the 
same way with the canonical Scriptures, must themselves be in- 
spired, then the Fourth Book of Esdras, which Rome rejects, 

* Tlerpos tv to) KTjpvyfxarL \riyet. Strom, vi. c. 5. Again, in the same chap- 
ter, referring to the same book — avrog Stacraiprjaei Herpog. Two other references 
are in the same chapter, besides various others in the first and second books. 

12* 



258 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

and Bellarmin declares to be disfigured with fables, the dreams 
of Rabbins and Talmudists, deserves to be inserted in the Sa- 
cred Library. In the sixteenth chapter of the third book of Strom- 
ata, you will find a passage from this miserable work, standing, 
in your view, upon consecrated ground, (for you frequently in- 
sist on it as a matter of some moment, when a text from the Apoc- 
rypha is introduced in connection with one from the canon,) 
with Jeremy on one hand and Job on the other. Nay, it would 
seem, if we confine ourselves simply to the language, that Esdras 
was regarded as a fit companion for these venerable men. His 
book is quoted as the work of a prophet — " says the Prophet 
Esdras. " I shall present the reader with a free translation of 
the whole passage :* 

'" Cursed be the day wherein I was born, let it not be blessed, 5 
says Jeremiah. He does not mean absolutely to say that his gen- 
eration should be cursed, but to express his affliction on account 
of the sins and disobedience of the people. He adds, therefore : 
( Wherefore was I born to see labors and sorrows, my days have 
been in perpetual reproach.' In fact, all faithful preachers of 
the truth, on account of the disobedience of their hearers, have 
been exposed to persecution and to peril. ' Why ivas not my 
mother's womb my sepulchre, that I might not have seen the travail 
of Jacob and the toil of the stock of Israel? 1 says the prophet 
Esdras." The text may be found in the fourth book of Esdras, 
chapter v. 35. 

Now, sir, is the fourth book of Esdras inspired ? Listen to 
Cardinal Bellarmin : " The third and fourth books of Esdras 
are apocryphal ; and although they are cited by the Fathers, 
yet, without doubt, they are not canonical, since no council has 
ever referred them to the canon. The fourth book is found 
neither in Hebrew nor Greek, and contains (chap, vi.) certain 

* The original is as follows : TLmKarapaTog 6s tj rjpEpa, ev ?7 erty^Brjv. kcli {xrj 
£<tt(x) eirevKrea, o leps/jiias tyrjo-iv. ov rr\v ytvzoiv airXug ETUKaraparov Xsycov, aAX aTrodvv- 
ttetcov eiri roig afjtapTrtjjiaai rov \aov koli ty) a^eiBeia' ewKpepei yovv* Sia rt yap tytw^Q^v, 
rov P\£n£iv kottovs Kai irovovg Kai SiereXso-av ev aia^virj ai rjjxzpai jjlov' avriKa itavrEg ov 
KrjpvaaovTEg ttjv aXriOsiav, Sia rrjv airsiQEiav roiv ukovovtgjv eSiwkovto te Kai ekiv6evvov. 
Aia tl yap ovk Eysvsro r\ fj.rjrpa rrjg fA^rpog fxov Taipog, iva pr] tSo) rov uoxOov rov Iowco/?, 
Kai rov kottov rov yEvovg I(7par)\' JLaSpag o Trpoynrrig \sy£i. Strom, iii. C. 16. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 259 

fabulous things concerning the fish Henoch and Leviathan, which 
were too large for the seas to hold. These stories are the 
dreams of Rabbins and Talmudists."* And yet a work which is 
thus summarily condemned by one of the brightest ornaments of 
your church, is quoted by a Christian Father, in connection with 
Jeremiah and Job, as the production of a Prophet ! What a 
commentary upon your principles of criticism ! 

6. Let me now call your attention to the manner in which 
Clement has treated the verses of the Sibyl. I shall not stop to 
inquire whether the collection which Justin, Theophilus and 
himself commended, were thegenuine verses of the ancient Sibyl, 
or an impudent forgery of a later date. It is enough for my 
purpose to observe that the book extant in the second century 
under the well-known name of the Heathen Prophetess, is not 
only quoted by Clement, but, what is much more remarkable, 
distinguished as Prophetic and Divine Scripture.! What 

* Apocryphi sunt liber tertius et quartus Esdrae. Quartus autem Esdrae 

eitatur quidem ab Ambrosio tamen sine dubio non est canonicus, cum a 

nullo conciiio referatur in canonem, et non inveniatur neque Hebraice neque 
Graece, ac demum contineat (cap. 6) quaedam fabulosa de pisce Henoch et Levia- 
than quos maria capere non poterant, quae Rabbinorum, Talmudistarum somnia 
sunt. Bellarm. de Verb. Dei. i. 20. 

t As a specimen of his treatment of the Sybilline verses, take the following 
passage. Cohort ad Gerties, c. 8 : 

S2pa tolvvv, roiv aWcov rjjxiv rrj tgl^ei TrpoSirjvvcrfjLevcJv ettl Tag 7rpo(f)£TLKag levai ypa- 
<pa$. vai yap oi xpriGLioi, rag eig ti\v BsocEfisiav £fjir) a^opjxag evapyEarara -npoTEivovTEg, 
6euc\iovai rqv aX-qQeiav' ■) pa6ai cs ai 6etai } kcic rco\iT£iai aco<ppoveg, avvTOLioi Gtorrjpiag 
oSpi' yvjivai KopnoiTiiriS, nai rrjg xrjrog KaWicjxoviag aai aroijxv'Xiag^ icai KoXaKCiag virap- 
^ovo-at, aviGTLoaiv oX^ojxevov vrro xaxiag tov auBpayrrov. vnepiSovcrai tov oXhtBov tov j3po- 

TlKOVj L'.IOL KCU TX\ CLVTT] ^COVTJ TToWcL BspaTTEVOV&ai , dTTOrpETfOVaai LIEV TJLiag T£g ETTlty'UQV 

aTrarrjg, TrpoTpzirovaai 6s eiicpavwg Eig Ttpovirrov awrripiiav- avn.Ka yovv t] npocprjTEg rjLav 
aaaso) Trpoirr) HifivWa, to aa[xa to vaiTripiov. Then follows an extract from the 
book. This remarkable passage may be thus rendered : " Other things having 
been despatched in their order, it is time to proceed to the Prophetic Scriptures 
(i. e. the Sybilline verses). For, indeed, these oracular responses, setting most 
clearly before us the means and method of Divine Worship, lie at the foundation 
of truth. These Divine Scriptures and wise institutions are compendious ways 
of salvation. Free from meretricious ornament, the intrinsic embellishment of 
speech, from flippancy and adulation, they elevate the man who is depressed by 
evil — having taught to despise the casualties of life, and with the same voice 
they heal many disorders, turn us away from dangerous delusion, and direct our 




260 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

will you say to this astounding fact ! Are you prepared to as- 
sert that he esteemed the Sibyl of equal authority with Isaiah, 
Jeremiah and David, or regarded her verses as entitled to equal 
veneration with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms 1 And 
yet, if the names Scripture, Divine Scripture, and such like ex- 
pressions, are sufficient to prove inspiration — and upon these you 
have chiefly relied in urging the testimony of Clement, in behalf 
of the Apocrypha — the books of the Sibyl have the same claims to 
a place in the canon as Wisdom, Tobias and Baruch. The " two 
passages/'* upon which you insist with peculiar emphasis, will 



attention to that salvation which is before our eyes. Let then the Sibyl-Prophet- 
ess first sing to us the song of salvation ." Where can any thing be produced 
so strong in favor of the Apocrypha 1 

* " Let me now call your attention to two passages frorii the first and the 
fourth books of his Stromaton, from which we may learn something of the con- 
tents of the Scripture, as it was in the hands of this writer : 

" During this (the Babylonian) captivity, lived Esther and Mordecai, whose 
book is had, as also that of the Maccabees. During the same captivity, Misael, 
Ananias, and Agarias, unwilling to adore the statue, were cast into the furnace 
of fire and were saved by an angel that appeared to them. Then, too, David 
having been cast into a pit of lions, because of Dagon, and nourished by Aba- 
cum through the Providence of God, was saved after seven days. In this time, 
too, happened the sign of Jonah. And Tobias, because of the angel Raphael, 
takes Sara to wife, whose first seven husbands Satan had slain ; and after his 
marriage his father Tobit recovers his sight. Then Zorobabel, having conquered 
his rivals in wisdom, obtained from Darius the rebuilding of Jerusalem." 

The next passage is : " How great is the perfection of Moses, who preferred 
to die with his people rather than to remain alone in life. But Judith, too, 
made perfect among women, when the city was besieged, having besought the 
elders, went into the camp of the strangers, despising every danger for sake of 
her country, delivering herself to her enemies with faith in God. And soon she 
received the reward of that faith when she, a woman, acted manfully against 
the enemy and obtained the head of Holophernes. And Esther, also, was per- 
fect in faith, freeing Israel from tyrannical power and the cruelty of a satrap. 
She, a single woman, resisted the innumerable armed forces, annulling through 
faith the tyrant's decree. Him she rendered meek and crushed Aman ; and by 
her perfect prayer to God, preserved Israel unhurt. I mention not Susannah, 
and the sister of Moses ; how this one led the hosts with the Prophet the chief 
of all the women among the Hebrews, renowned for wisdom ; and the other 
being led forth even to death for her high purity, when she was condemned by 
her incontinent lovers, remained an unshaken martyr of chastity." 



AFOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 261 

be found, when carefully examined, to afford no sort of counte- 
nance to your cause. The first is taken from the twenty-first 
chapter of the first book of Stromata, and occurs in the midst of 
an argument to prove what was notoriously a favorite dogma 
with the Fathers, that heathen literature was derived from the 
Jews. Clement shows that Moses was earlier than the Greek 
philosophers, theogonists and poets, and that, consequently, 
whatever was valuable in Gentile learning, might be historically 
traced to the pure fountains of Hebrew theology. He, accord- 
ingly, after having given a synoptical statement of Greek chro- 
nologies, presents us with a compendious recital of Jewish his- 
tory. He fixes, in the first place, the age of Moses, then exhibits 
in rapid review the leading events between Moses and David, 
and David and the Captivity, and finally mentions the most re- 
markable facts that occurred during the period of the Exile. 
In this connection your first passage is introduced. Now all 
that Clement's argument required was that the statements 
which he gathered from the Apocrypha should be historically 
true. It was not important that they should be confirmed by Di- 
vine inspiration, or delivered only by writers who were guided 
by the Spirit of God. It was enough that he believed them to be 
true. Historical credibility and supernatural inspiration are not 
terms of the same extension. The histories of Herodotus 
and Livy are, without doubt, to be received as authentic. 
Does it follow that they must also be regarded as inspired or 
Divine ? Why then may not the history of the Maccabees, the 
narrative of Tobit, and the story of Susannah, be received as 
a faithful exhibition of the facts which they record, without be- 
ing clothed with supernatural authority 1 Clement simply in- 
forms us, " that during this period lived Esther and Mordecai, 
whose book is had, as also that of the Maccabees." But is there 
a single syllable which indicates that either book was inspired 1 
We know, in fact, that Esther was, but if we had not other in- 
formation, we should never be able to collect it from this pas- 
sage. Again, he says, " Tobias, because of the angel Raphael, 
takes Sarah to wife, whose first seven husbands, Satan had slain ; 
and after their marriage, his father Tobit recovers his sight." 
In other words, Clement simply abridges a well known narrative 



26*2 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

without the slightest expression of opinion as to the source from 
which it originated. The book of Tobit was a part of the general 
body of Jewish literature, and as such is introduced by the 
father. But what puts it beyond all doubt that Clement did not con- 
fine himself, in this passage, as you would have us to suppose, to 
the canonical books, the very next sentence to the last which 
you have quoted refers to the fourth book of Esdras, (which 
Rome declares to be apocryphal,) and mentions a fact which is 
recorded in the fourteenth chapter of that fabulous production. 
Clement attributes to Esdras a renovation of the sacred oracles, 
in evident allusion to the story that the books of the law had 
been burnt and were miraculously restored after the captivity. 
" Esdras afterwards" — these are the words of the Father* — 
"Esdras afterwards returned to his country and by him we 
achieved the redemption of the people and the recension and re- 
newal of the inspired oracles." 

Your second passage, which may be found in the nineteenth 
chapter of the fourth book of the Stromata, is little more than a 
quotation from Clement of Rome's Epistle to the Corinthians; 
and as you have already insisted upon it as found in the apos- 
tolic father, I need not here repeat the answer which has 
already been given. That Susannah — a fact to which you 
attach no small degree of importance — should be named in con- 
nection with Moses, Miriam, and Esther, is no more surprising 
than that Socrates should have been lauded as a martyr and 
honored as a prophet of the Logos of God.f 

4. I see nothing in any of the extracts which you have given 
from Tertullian, that can possibly be tortured into the semblance 
of an argument. Without insisting on the point which, I think, 
is susceptible of an easy demonstration, that some of the pas- 
sages in which you represent him as quoting the Apocrypha, 
are, in fact, citations from the canonical books, it is sufficient 
to observe that he drops not a single expression from which it 

* YLai neraTLaSpa els rr\v irarp(x>av yrjv ava^evyvvai. 6t ov yivsrai 77 a7ro\vrpcocis eai 
Artou Kai tiov OeoTTvevaroJv avayvoypia/jLog kizi avaKaivianos "Soyitov. I. 16. Irenaeus 
also endorsed the same story. Contra Hares, Lib. iii. e. 21. Cf. Euseb. H. 
E. v. 8. 

t Strom, i. Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 5. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 263 

can be necessarily inferred that he believed these works, however 
freely he might use them, to be entitled to equal veneration and 
respect with the undisputed canon of the Jews. If he appeals 
to Wisdom and Baruch under the names respectively of Solomon 
and Jeremiah, it is only in consequence of the title of the books. 
There is, in fact, as much evidence that he deferred to the 
fourth book of Esdras as canonical authority, as you have been 
able to adduce in favor of the documents which Rome has 
appended to the word of God. In the Treatise De Cultu Femi- 
narum, there occurs in the third chapter an evident allusion to 
the apocryphal story, which the fathers seem to have received 
without suspicion, of the miraculous restoration of the Jewish 
books, after the return from the Babylonian captivity, by the 
agency of Esdras. " Omne instrumentum " is the language of 
Tertullian, " omne instrumentum Judaicae Literature per Esdram 
constant restauratum." Every instrument of Jewish Literature 
was restored by Esdras, 

The expressions, oculi Domini alti, which may be found near 
the beginning of the Tract De Prescriptione Haereticorum, seem 
to have been suggested by a corresponding phrase in the eighth 
chapter of the fourth book of Esdras, Domine cujus oculi elevati 
(v. 20). Very nearly an exact quotation from this same fabu- 
lous production, is introduced again in the sixteenth section of 
the fourth book of the Work against Marcion, Loquere in aures 
audientium. 

It is susceptible of the clearest proof, that Tertullian did not 
scruple to refer to a book as scripture, which he knew at the 
time not to be inspired. So that if your argument had been even 
stronger than it is — if you had produced, as you have not, cita- 
tions from his writings, in which this distinguished father applies 
to the Apocrypha the usual appellations of the canonical books, 
your conclusion could not have followed from your premises. On 
two separate occasions, Tertullian denominates the Pastor of 
Hermas scripture, and yet, in one of the instances, in the very 
connection in which he refers to it under this honorable title, he 
distinctly testifies that it possessed no Divine authority, but was 
universally rejected as apocryphal and spurious.* So, again, 
* The second passage from Tertullian I shall insert entire. Sed cederem tibi, 



264 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

in the seventeenth chapter of his Dissertation upon Baptism, he 
speaks of a composition which he declares to be spurious, as the 
scripture which an Asiatic Presbyter had forged under the name 
of Paul.* 

The author of the Poetical Books against Marcion, which 
pass under the name of Tertullian, seems to have entertained not 
the slighted suspicion that this " Prince of the Latin Church " 
called into question the integrity or completeness of the Hebrew 
canon. He informs us that the twenty-four wings of the Elders 
in the Apocalypse, were symbolical representations of the twenty- 
four books which compose the Old Testament. The number 
twenty-four being doubtless made, as we iearn from Jerome that 
it was sometimes done, by separating Lamentations from the 
prophecy of Jeremiah, and Ruth from the book of Judges." 

" Alarum numerus antiqua volumina signat, 
Esse satis certa viginti quatuor ista 
Quae Domini cecinere vias et tempora pacis." 

Carm. Advers. Marc. lib. iv. 

It may be gathered as an important inference from the exam- 
ination which has just been instituted into the leading documents 

si Scriptura Pastoris, quae sola mcechos amat, divino instrumento meruisset in- 
cidi, si non ab omni concilio ecclessiarum vestrarum inter apocrypha et falso 
judiearetur.— De Pudicit. c. 10. Tertullian wrote thiswhen he was a Montan- 
ist. That, however, is of no importance, since the critical purpose for which it 
is adduced is to show that he may call a book scripture and yet believe it to be 
apocryphal. The passage may be thus turned into English : 

" But I would yield the point to you, if the scripture of the Shepherd, which 
is favorable to adulterers, deserved to be placed in the Divine Testament ; if it 
were not reckoned apocryphal and spurious by every assembly even of your 
own churches." 

* Quod si Pauli perperam Scriptura legunt, exemplum Theclse ad licentiam 
mulierum docendi tingendique defendunt, sciant in Asia Presbyterum, qui earn 
Scripturam construxit, quasi titulo Pauli de suo cumulans, convictum atque con- 
fessum, id se amore Pauli fecisse, loco discessisse. But if any read the writ- 
ings falsely attributed to Paul, and defend the right of women to preach and 
baptize by the example of Thecla, let them know that the Asiatic Presbyter 
who forged that scripture, adorning his performance with the title of Paul, 
having been convicted of the thing, and having confessed that he did it out of 
love to Paul, left his place." 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 265 

of the second century — that all writings, professedly religious, 
whether human or supernatural in their origin, were referred by 
the fathers to a common class, and embraced under a common 
appellation. This was done in order that a broad line might be 
drawn between the monuments of pagan literature and the pro- 
ductions of those who sought to be governed by the fear of God. 
The sacred and profane were not to be promiscuously blended 
or confounded — the acknowledged compositions of the sons of 
light, uninspired though they might be, were not to be included 
in the same category with the vain discussions and false philo- 
sophy of the children of darkness. They belonged to a different 
department of thought — a department possessing much in com- 
mon with those Divine books which the Spirit had given as a 
rule of faith. Whatever was written with a pious attention and 
promised to promote holiness of life, was consequently ranked in 
the same class with the inspired Scriptures to distinguish them 
effectually from the whole body of heathen literature. When 
the fathers, therefore, use such terms as you have insisted to be 
a proof of inspiration, they meant no more than that the writings 
which they quote were suited to develope the graces of the Spirit, 
and to quicken diligence and zeal. They were religious books, 
religious in opposition to profane, books which might not only 
be perused without detriment, but studied with positive advan- 
tage. Divine Scripture and such like expressions, were terms, 
to speak in logical language, denoting a subaltern genus which 
embraced under it two distinct species, inspired and uninspired 
productions. These species were distinguished from each other 
by the difference of their origin ; but as they agreed in the com- 
mon property of being subservient to the interests of piety, and 
by this common property were alike removed from all other 
works, they received, in consequence, a common name. There 
must have been some phraseology by which even an uninspired 
literature that the faithful might commend, could be discrimi- 
nated from heathen letters ; and as the leading difference be- 
tween them was, that one was Divine in its tendencies and ob- 
jects, while the other was sensual, earthly, and devilish, no terms 
could possibly have been selected more appropriate, than those 
which were actually applied by the early fathers toHermas, Bar 

I 



266 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

nabas, and Clement, as well as to Wisdom, Tobit, and Baruch. 
Let the reader then bear in mind that, according to the usage of 
the primitive church, Divine Scripture was a generic term, in- 
cluding in its meaning whatever might be profitably read — what- 
ever was fitted to foster devotion, and to inspire diligence in the 
Christian life, and the language of the fathers will present no dif- 
ficulty. 



LETTER XVII. 



Testimony of the writers of the third century considered— Cyprian, Hippolytus, Apostolical 

Constitutions. 

The same erroneous principles of criticism, which betrayed 
at once the weakness of the cause and the ignorance of the 
advocate, in your appeal to the writings of the second century, 
have signally misled you in the inferences which you have drawn 
from what you call the testimony of the third century. Cyprian, 
bishop of Carthage, with whom you commence your account of 
this period, and to whom you seem willing to defer with abso- 
lute submission, will be found, I apprehend, when so interpreted 
as to be consistent with himself, to afford no more countenance 
to the adulterated canon of Rome than his celebrated master, 
Tertullian.* It deserves to be remarked, though I shall not 
insist upon the fact in the argument, that several of the passages 
which you have culled from the writings of this distinguished 
father, are taken from a treatise upon which, in the judgment 
of scholars, no certain reliance can be placed. The Testimonies 
against the Jews to Quirinus, even by those who allow it to be 
genuine, is yet acknowledged to be so largely corrupted, that it 
is impossible to distinguish what is truly Cyprian's from what 
has been subsequently added by others. f A work of this sort 

* Nunquam Cyprianum absque Tertulliani lectione unam diem praeterisse, 
ac sibi crebre dicere solitum ; Da magistrum Tertullianum significans. — Vita 
perJac. Pamilium. 

* Stephen Baluze had paid great attention to the study of Cyprian, and 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 267 

should evidently " be quoted," as Lardner has justly observed, 
" with some particular caution ;" you, however, have used it as 
freely, certainly with as little appearance of suspicion, as if you 
had been perfectly assured that|every sentence, line, and word, 
stood precisely as they came from the hands of the venerable 
bishop of Carthage. 

1. Your favorite Tobias is the first book which you attempt 
to canonize by the assistance of this father, and verily, you 
could not, in the whole range of the Apocrypha, have selected 
a work more admirably adapted to furnish a complete refutation 
of your whole process of argument. It is admitted that Cyprian 
has repeatedly quoted this document, and, in some instances, 
quoted it as Divine Scripture. But that this does not amount 
to an admission of its canonical authority — that it implies no 
more than that the work was historically true in its statements, 
and suited to promote the purposes of piety, is plain from the 
fact, that while he acknowledges it to be Divine Scripture, he 
virtually asserts that it was not inspired. He draws a broad 

possessed twenty-one manuscripts of this particular treatise. His opinion, there- 
fore is entitled to great weight. " If," says he, " there are any passages in the 
writings of Cyprian, of which it cannot be certainly said that they belong to him, 
that can be chiefly asserted of the books of Testimonies to Quirinus. Several 
manuscripts have more than the common editions, some less. Since, there- 
fore, it is impossible to distinguish what is truly Cyprian's from what has been 
subsequently added by his admirers, we have retained what we found in an- 
cient manuscript copies. Only the two first books exist in the Spirensian edi- 
tion, the old Venetian, and in that which Rembold edited. Erasmus published 
the third from a written codex of the monastery of Gamblour. I have twenty- 
one ancient copies of these books, of which, however, only five have the two first 
books." 

Si qua sunt loca in operibus sancti Cypriani, de quibus pronuntiari non pos- 
sit ea certe illius esse,idvero inprimis asseri potest de libris Testimoniorum ad 
Quirinum. Plures enim codices plus habent quam vulgatae editionis, alii minus. 
Itaque, quoniam impossibiie est discernere ea quae vere Cypriani sunt ab iis quae 
post ilium a studiosis addita sunt, nos retinuimus ea quae reperta nobis sunt 
in antiquis exemplaribusmanuscriptis. Porro duo tantmn priores libri extant in 
editione Spirensi, in veteri Veneta, et in ea quam Remboldus procuravit. Eras- 
mus tertiam emisit ex codice scripto monasterii Gemblacensis. Habui autem 
unum et viginti exemplaria Vetera horum librorum, quorum tamen quinque ha- 
bent tantum libros duos priores. — Baluz. Not. ad Cyprian, p. 596, as quoted in 
Lardner, vol. Hi. pp. 17, 18. (marg.) 



268 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

distinction between it and the unerring testimony of revealed 
truth ; and although he was willing to accommodate its senti- 
ments, breath its devotion, and commend its morality, he was 
too well acquainted with its nature and origin, to depend upon 
it for a proof of doctrine. Accordingly in the Treatise de Opere 
et Eleemosynis, having cited and briefly expounded the passage, 
"prayer is good with fasting and alms" (Tob. xii. 8), he pro- 
ceeds :* " The angel Raphael reveals, and manifests, and confirms 
the truth that our petitions are rendered effectual by alms — that 
our lives are redeemed from peril by alms — and that by alms 
our souls are delivered from death. Nor do we allege these 
things, dearest brethren, so as not to prove what the angel Ga- 
briel has said by the testimony of truth. In the Acts of the 
Apostles the truth of the fact is established ; and that souls are 
delivered by alms, not only from the second, but also from the 
first death, is confirmed alike by fact and experience." He 
then appeals to the history of Tabitha, and to divers passages in 
the canonical Scriptures, as the proof of what he had cited from 
the book of Tobit. What is this but a virtual declaration that 
this document, however valuable on other accounts, was no part 
of the rule of faith, and could not be adduced to bind the con- 
science with the authority of God? Cyprian appeals to it, but 
instead of relying upon it, as he does upon the Acts, Gospels, 
Genesis, and Proverbs, proceeds to confirm the sentiment which 
he had quoted, by what he denominated the testimony of truth. 
This phrase, if we may judge from the connection, evidently 
means the testimony of Him who cannot lie ; who, embracing the 
past, the present, and the future in a single glance of unerring 
intuition, is emphatically the Father of lights. His law, accord- 
ing to the Psalmist, is the fountain of truth, and His testimony 
must be regarded as the seal of truth. When Cyprian, there- 
fore, applies this expression, as he unquestionably does in the 

* Revelat angelus et manifestat, et firmat eleemosynis vitam de periculis 
redemi : eleemosynis a morte animos liberari. Nee sic, fratres charissimi, ista 
proferrimus, ut non quod Raphael angelus dixit veritatis testimonio comprobe- 
mus. In Actibus Apostolorum facti fides posita est, et quod eleemosynis non 
tantum a secunda, sed a priora morte animae liberentur, gestae et impletae rei 
probadone compertum est. — Dicei Cypriani, de Opere et Eleemosynis. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 

present instance, to the plain declarations of the Acts, the Gos- 
pels, Genesis, and Proverbs, he can mean nothing less than that 
these books are to be received as authoritative standards of 
faith ; and when he distinguishes the teaching of Tobit, as we 
see that he has done, from the testimony of truth, what other 
idea can be conveyed but that this work is not entitled to a 
place in the category of inspired Scriptures ? We have, conse- 
quently, his own statements against your inference. You main- 
tained that he deferred to Tobit with the same submission, 
veneration, and respect which he awarded to the books that are 
not disputed ; he, on the other hand, assures us that while he 
believed it to be Divine Scripture, a godly and edifying book, 
he still regarded it merely as a human production, which, so far 
from being competent to regulate our faith, needed itself to be 
confirmed by a higher sanction than the authority of its author — 
even the testimony of essential truth. 

2. You next attempt to show that Cyprian received Wisdom 
and Ecclesiasticus as inspired compositions; and your proof 
is derived from the fact that he repeatedly quotes them under 
the name of Solomon, and through Solomon attributes them to 
the Holy Spirit. He seldom speaks of them absolutely and 
without qualification [as the testimony of God, but whenever he 
alludes to them as the work of the Sprit, it is plainly on [the 
supposition that they were actually written by Solomon. In 
other words, the evidence is precisely the same that he held 
them to be Solomon's, as that he held them to be supernaturally 
inspired. He introduces, for instance, a passage from the third 
chapter of Wisdom — the first upon your list — in these words :* 
" By Solomon the Holy Spirit hath shown and forecautioned 
us, saying' 7 — and again,f " Thus also the Holy Spirit teaches 
us." So too Ecclesiasticus is quoted in these words :$ " Solo- 
mon also, guided by the Holy Ghost, testifies and teaches." 

It is evident from these passages — and they are the strongest 



* Per Salomonem spiritus sanctus ostendit et precarit, dicens. — De Exhort. 
Mars. c. 12. 

t Sed et per Salomonem docet spiritus sanctus. — De Mortalitate 

t Sed et Salomon in spiritu sancte constitutus testatur et docet. — Epist 64. 



270 ROMANTST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

which can be produced — that it is only a conditional inspiration 
which Cyprian attributes to Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. If he 
believed that they were written by Solomon, then he unquestion- 
ably received them as inspired. Now you have confidently as- 
serted the consequent of this proposition, but have nowhere 
condescended to furnish us with any portion of the evidence by 
which the antecedent is established. Every Protestant is willing 
to concede that if these books were the productions of Solomon, 
they deserve to be inserted in the sacred canon. But the real 
question is, whether or not Solomon was their author. If there 
is no satisfactory evidence that Cyprian believed them to be his, 
then there is no satisfactory evidence that he believed them to 
be inspired. They came from God, in the view of this father, 
only on the supposition that they came from Solomon. But 
where is the proof that Cyprian believed them to have been writ- 
ten by him? On this point, which is vital to your argument, you 
have left us completely in the dark. If it can be shown, how- 
ever, that he did not believe that Solomon was their author, then 
he furnishes no testimony whatever in behalf of their inspiration ; 
since we can never reason in hypothetical propositions, from the 
removal of the antecedent to the establishment or removal of the 
consequent. Cyprian says that they were inspired if Solomon 
wrote them ; but where does he say that Solomon wrote them ? 
Unless he has said so, your conclusion is drawn from no premi- 
ses which he has supplied. Now I maintain that there is satis- 
factory evidence that neither Cyprian nor any other intelligent 
father really believed that Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus were the 
compositions of Solomon. Augustine has distinctly informed us 
that, though they were usually ascribed to him, it was not because 
they were reputed to be his, but because they were imitations of 
his style. In the twentieth chapter of the seventeenth book of the 
Treatise de CivitateDei, after having mentioned the three books, 
Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus and Canticles, which were universally 
acknowledged to have been written by Solomon, he adds :* " Two 

* Prophetasse etiam ipse reperitur in suis libris, qui tres recepti sunt in auc- 
toritatem canonicam, Pro verba, Ecclesiastes, et Can ti cum Canticorum. Alii 
vero duo, quorum unus Sapientia, alter Ecclesiasticus dicitur, propter eloquii 
nonnullum similitudinem, ut Salomonis dicantur ; obtinuit consuetudo: non 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 271 

other books, one of which is called Wisdom, the other Ecclesias- 
ticus, have also from custom, on account of some similarity of 
style, received their titles from the name of Solomon. That they 
are not his, however, the more learned entertain no doubt." So 
also in his Speculum de Libro Sapientia :* "Among these," 
that is, the books written before the advent of Christ which the 
Jews rejected from the canon, but which the Christian church 
treated with respect," " among these are two, which by many 
are called by the name of Solomon, on account, as I suppose, of 
a certain similarity of style. For that they are not Solomon's, 
admits of no question among the more learned. It does not in- 
deed appear who was the author of the book of Wisdom, but 
that the other, which we call Ecclesiasticus, was written by a 
Jesus who was surnamed Sirach, must be acknowledged by all 
who have read the book through." 

If now Cyprian were among the more learned doctors of the 
church — and you have given him a distinguished place in your 
introductory eulogium on his character — he did not believe, ac- 
cording to the testimony of Augustine, that these disputed books 
were written by Solomon ; and, therefore, there is not a particle 
of evidence that he held them to be inspired. In fact, it is alto- 
gether incredible that any critic of ordinary intelligence could 
be persuaded that an inspired man was the author of a work 
which not only bore upon its face the name of another individu- 
al, but contained in its preface a satisfactory account of its origi- 
nal composition in one language and its subsequent translation 
into another. Here is a book which professes to have been 
written by one Jesus. The proof of its inspiration turns upon 



autem esse ipsius, non dubitam doctiores. — S. Augustini Episcopi de Civitate 
Dei, liber xvii. cap. 20. 

* Sed non sunt omittendi hi, quos quidem ante Salvatoris adventum con- 
stat esse conscriptos, sed eos non receptos a Judaeis, recipit tamen ejusdem Sal- 
vatoris Ecclesia. In his sunt duo quis Salomonis a pluribus apellantur, propter 
quamdam, sicut existimo eloquii similitudinem. Nam Salomonis non esse, 
nihil dubitant quique doctiores. Nee tamen ejus qui Sapientiae dicitur, quisnam 
sit auctor apparet. Ilium vero alterum, quern vocamus Ecclesiasticum, quod 
Jesus quidarn scripserit, qui cognominatur Sirach, constat inter eos qui eundem 
librum totum legerunt,— S. Augustini Episcopi Speculum de libro Ezechielis. 



272 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the fact that it was not written, as it professes to be, by Jesus, 
but by Solomon — that is, it can only be proved to be inspired, 
bybeing proved to open with a lie — in other words, it is shown to 
be the testimony of infallible truth by being shown to contain a pal- 
pable falsehood. The ridiculous evasion of Bellarmin, that Je- 
sus diligently collected and reduced into a volume the maxims 
of Solomon, so that Ecclesiasticus might with propriety be at- 
tributed to each,* is refuted by the Prologue which is prefixed 
to the book. It is there stated that the original author/' when 
he had much given himself to the reading of the Law and the 
Prophets and other books of our (Jewish) fathers, and had gotten 
therein good judgment, wa^drawn on also himself to write some- 
thing pertaining to learning and wisdom. " This looks very lit- 
tle like collecting and digestingfthe maxims of Solomon. Eccle- 
siasticus evidently purports to be an original work, suggested, 
not by the study of Solomon alone, but by the whole canon of 
the Jews. It is true that it is an imitation, and in many instan- 
ces a very successful imitation, of the pointed and sententious 
style of the wise monarch of Israel. 

Besides the similarity of style, which was perhaps the origin- 
al ground for altributing this work to Solomon, two other rea- 
sons may be assigned for quoting both it and Wisdom under 
his name, as we see that Cyprian has done. In the first place it 
was a rapid and convenient mode of reference. The name of 
Solomon was a part of the professed title of the book of Wisdom, 
but as it was notorious that he was not the author of it, it would have 
been silly hypercritical nicety always to have resorted, in refer- 
ring to it, to the awkward periphrasis — the author of the book 
called the Wisdom of Solomon. To quote it by its title implied 
no belief that its title was just. Clemens Alexandrinus appealed 
to the fourth book of Esdras under the name of the Prophet 
Ezra. Baruch is frequently cited under the name of Jeremiah : 
and the Preaching of Peter was accommodated by Clement under 
the name of the Apostle. 

* At Epiphanius in haeresi Anomaronim, et alii nonnulli auctorem libri hu- 
jus Jesum Sirach esse volunt. Respondeo, facile potuisse fieri, ut Jesus Sirach 
sententias Salomonis a se diligenter collectas in unum volumen redegerit, ita 
uterque, auctor dici poterit. — Be Verbo Dei, lib. i. cap. 14. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 273 

As the book of Ecclesiasticus, on account of its striking anal- 
ogy to the compositions of Solomon, was in all probability de- 
signated by his name — just as we call a great poet a Homer, or 
a great conqueror another Alexander — the fathers would feel no 
hesitation in adopting a common and popular title, especially 
when the work itself contained an effectual antidote against all er- 
roneous impressions. " In the gospel of Luke/' says Rainold,* 
" Christ is called the son of Joseph, as likewise in the gospel 
of John. Luke, however, elsewhere explains it, saying that 
Christ was the son of Joseph, as it was supposed, and Philip says 
to Nathanael, we have found Jesus the son of Joseph of whom 
Moses in the law, and the prophets have written. Yet Moses in 
the Law adumbrated Christ by Melchisedec, without father as 
a man, without mother as God : and Isaiah, the prince of pro- 
phets says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a son. 
Hence it is evident that Christ as a man had no father ; and so 
Philip might have known that Joseph was not, in reality, the 
father of Jesus. If he did know it, he used the phrase only 
for convenience of reference. But if Philip were ignorant of the 
fact, the blessed Virgin certainly knew that Jesus had been con- 
ceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, and yet she says, in 
the gospel of Luke : Behold, thy father and I have sought thee 
sorrowing. Though she knew that Joseph was not the father of 
Christ, yet she calls him his father : in the first place, because 

* Apud Lucam Christus Josephi filius dicitur, similiter et apud Johannem. 
Quanquam Lucas alibi id explicat, dicens Christum fuisse filium Josephi ut pu- 
tabatur, et Philippus ad Nathanaelem invenimus (inquit) Jesum filium Joseph, de 
quo scripsit Moses in lege adumbravit Christu per Melchisedecum sine patre ut 
hominem, sine matre ut Deum. Et prophetarum princeps Esaias, Ecee, (inquit) 
virgo concipiet et pariet filium, unde patet Christum ut hominem non habuisse 
patrem, adeoque poterat Phillippus prius intellexisse. Josephum non fuisse vere 
patrem Jesu. Si intellexerit ergo ad commoditatem significationis sic loquutus 
est, sed ignoravit id Philippus, sciebat certe beata virgo eum a spiritu sancto con- 
ceptum esse ipsa, tamen apud Lucam, Ecce (inquit) pater tuus ego cruciati quaere- 
bamus te. Cum sciret non fuisse Josephum Christi patre, appellat tunc Josephum 
patrem, primo quia sic putabatur esse, secundo propter reverentiam, quausus est 
Christus erga Josephum, tanquam patrem, eodem modo verisimile est patres, cum 
citarint libros Sapientiae et Ecclesiastici sub nomine Salomonis, usos esse eo nom- 
ine, non quod Salomonis esse putarint,sed significandi commoditatem sequutos, 
appellationem vulgo usitatam retinuisse. — De Libris Apocryphis y Proelectio xix. 

13 



274 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

he was reputed to be so, and in the second, on account of the 
filial reverence with which Christ uniformly treated Joseph. In 
the same way it is likely that the fathers, in citing the books of 
Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus under the name of Solomon, did so, 
not because they imputed them to him, but for convenience of 
reference they retained a common and popular designation." 
To this may be added, as the same learned writer has intima- 
ted, that they used the name of Solomon to conciliate greater 
reverence and esteem for the sentiments which they had chosen 
to accommodate. These books were so strikingly analogous to 
those of Solomon, that they might be studied, in the opinion of 
the fathers, with safety and advantage. Their authors, whoever 
they were, breathed the spirit of devotion, and hence their pro- 
ductions were applauded, as the modern church warmly com- 
mends Owen, Charnock, and Scott. Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 
Tobit, and Judith, were regarded as good elementary works of re- 
ligion, which might be placed with success in the hands of 
novices, to prepare them for the higher mysteries of the faith. 
Such, at least, is the testimony of Athanasius.* In his famous 
Festal Epistle, after having given a catalogue of the inspired 
books of the Old and New Testament, he adds : " There are also 
other books beside these, not indeed admitted to the canon, but 
ordained by the Fathers to be read by such as have recently 
come over (to Christianity), and who wish to receive instruction 
in the doctrine of piety — the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom 
of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, the Doctrine of the 
Apostle, as it is called, and the Shepherd. " 

But whether the explanations which have been given of the 
manner in which the Fathers quote Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus 
be satisfactory or not, one thing is absolutely certain — that their 
ascribing them to Solomon, in incidental references, is no proof 
whatever that they really believed them to be his. Bellarmin 
appeals to Basil as having cited Ecclesiasticus in this way, and 

* Eoti koli srspa Pi0\ia tovtu)v s^oyOev, ov Kavovi^ofieva jxev, T£TV7ra)fx£va 6e napa tmv 
7Tarepo)v avayiv(d(TK£cdai tois apri 7rpoa£p^o[X£vois kui /3ov),Ofj£vois Karrj^EicrOai rov rrjs 
evvcfieias \oyov HtO(pia EoAojucovros - , kcu aocpia Hipa^, kcli Kadrjp, kcli IovSeQ^ kcii To/?taj, 
teat diSa%r] KaXovfxevri twv Airoaro'Xojv, kcli o TtoiyLr\v. Athanasius, JEpistola Festalis, 
Opp. i. p. 961, ed. Bened. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 275 

yet Basil unequivocally asserts that only three boohs, Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes, and Canticles, were written by Solomon : Jerome, 
too, has been guilty of the same method of citation, and has just 
as strongly affirmed that no other books can be properly ascribed 
to Solomon, but those which are found in the Jewish canon.* 
It is unnecessary to adduce more examples. One single instance 
is sufficient to maim a conclusion drawn from the only circum- 
stance which can be tortured into any thing like evidence that 
Cyprian or any other Father imputed the documents in question 
to the pen of Solomon. It will now be remembered that the 
leading proposition of your argument was this — if Cyprian be- 
lieved that Solomon was the author of Ecclesiasticus and Wis- 
dom, he believed them to be inspired. It was incumbent on you 
to prove the antecedent, which you have not so much as attempt- 
ed to do. I, on the other hand, have shown that it is false ; or, 
at least, that there is not a particle of evidence in its favor. 
The argument then stands in this way : If Cyprian believed that 
Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom were written by Solomon, he believ- 
ed them to be inspired. But he did not believe that they were 
written by Solomon. Here in my opinion the syllogism halts — 
claudicat consecutio — and Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are left 
precisely where they were before you appealed to the testimony 
of Cyprian. 

The claims of Baruch and the additions to Daniel, to a place 
in the canon, you endeavor to vindicate by the same process of 
argument which we have seen to be worthless in the case of 

* Ita videtis judicia cani posse negati consequutionem illius argument!* 
patres hos libros a Salomone scriptos putarunt ergo sunt ah eo scripti. Nunc 
istius enthymematis antecedens examinemus. Patres existimarunt hos libros a 
Salomone scriptos, ad quod confiraiandum primum enthymema pertinet, patres 
citarunt hos libros sub nomine Salomonis, ergo existimarunt ab eo scriptos, hie 
quoque claudiat consequutio, in illis enim qui librum Sapiential sub Salomonis 
nomine citarunt, fuit Basilius, qui tamen aperte inficiatur eum a Salomone scrip- 
turn. Ubi tres oranino sacros libros Salomoni adscribit, rpeis naaas eyvoy/xev e 
EaXo/xcuj/ro? rag rrpay pars tag. Hieronymus etiam ex eorum numero est, qui eccle- 
siasticum sub nomine Salomonis citant. At alius est idem Hieronymus, ubi 
tres libros a Salomone scriptos decit Fertur (inquit) alius qui a Siracide scriptus 
est, Salomonis ; adhuc alius \pev6emypafos, qui Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur. 
De Libris Apocryphis, Pralectio xviii. 



276 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. Because Cyprian has quoted the one 
under the name of Jeremiah, and the other under the name of 
Daniel ; that is, because he has referred to the books by their 
notorious and ordinary titles, you would have us to believe that 
he really looked upon these venerable prophets as the authors 
of the documents in question. The futility of such reasoning 
has already been sufficiently exposed : and, therefore, without far- 
ther ceremony, we may dismiss the testimony of Cyprian in behalf 
of these works, as having no existence but in your own mind. 

4. His quotations from the Maccabees are no more remarkable 
than a quotation which he has made from the third book of Es- 
dras : and if his conviction of the historical credibility of the 
narrative in the one case is sufficient to canonize the books, 
his full and cordial accommodation of a sentiment in the other, 
must be equally valid for the same purpose. The truth is, the 
argument is stronger in behalf of Esdras, since Cyprian not only 
quotes it, but quotes it in the very same form in which Christ 
and his Apostles were accustomed to cite the writings of the Old 
Testament. " Custom without truth, " says he,* "is only an- 
tiquity of error : wherefore, having abandoned error, let us 
follow truth, knowing that truth says in Esdras — as it is written — 
'truth endureth and is always strong: it liveth and conquered 
for evermore.' " 

II. In what you call the testimony of Hippolytus and Dionysi 
us, you have presented us with nothing which requires an answer. 
They quote and comment on passages contained in the disputed 
books ; but I have yet to learn that any thing can be gathered 
from a fact of this sort, but the existence of the works in the 
age of the writers, and the knowledge and probable approbation 
of their contents. But you were truly bold to insist on what is 
called the Apostolical Constitutions as evidence in your favor. 
It is true, that the Apocrypha are quoted in this collection, but 
it is not true that the citations which occur imply that there was 



* Nam consiietudo sine veritate, vetustas erroris est : propterea quod relicto 
errore sequamur veritatem, scientes quia et apud Esdram Veritas dicit, sicut 
scriptum est : Veritas et manet et invalescit in seternum, et vincit et obtinet in 
saecula saeculorum. Epistola 74. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REPUTED. 277 

any Divine authority in the writings from which they were made. 
On the contrary, we have in the fifty-seventh chapter of the 
second book a catalogue or list of the books which were di- 
rected to be read in the churches : and not a syllable is whis- 
pered concerning Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, or any 
of the works which Rome has added to the canon — a pregnant 
proof that to quote a book and to believe it inspired are two very 
different things. The only books which are mentioned in con- 
nection with the Old Testament, are the Pentateuch, Joshua, 
Judges, Kings, Chronicles — the return from Babylon by Ezra — 
that is, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, David, Solomon, Job and 
the sixteen Prophets.* Here, then, is the canon of the Apostoli- 
cal Constitutions ; and though it is a document which is notori- 
ously spurions,f yet as you have chosen to appeal to its author- 
ity, I hope that, in this matter, you will abide by its decision. 



LETTER XVIII. 



Testimony of the Fourth Century considered. — Council of Nice. — Councils of Hippo and 
Carthage. — Testimony of Augustine — Ephrem the Syrian — Basil — Chrysostom — Ambrose. 

You open the testimony of the fourth century with the Coun- 
cil of Nice. It is wholly immaterial to the argument whether I 
despise its decisions^ or reverence its decrees, since the only ques- 

* AvayivcocTKEroi ra Mcoo-ews k<xl lrjaov rov Navjj* tcl tcjv npiroiv kgli toiv 0aai\eo)v' 
ra rcxiv TzapaXenrojjievoJV Kai rrjg enavoSov' irpog rovroig ra tov Ia>/? Kat tov T>o\o{xoivog 
/cat ra tuv EKKaiScKa -TrpocpaTcov' ava Svo Se yevofjievojv avayvGHTfiCLTajv, erepog rig tov 
AatfiS ipa^\cTG) vfxvovg. " Let him (the reader) read the books of Moses, and of 
Joshua the son of Nun, the books of Judges, Kings, and Chronicles, and those 
concerning the return from the captivity ; and beside these, the books of Job, 
Solomon, and the sixteen prophets ; and two readings having been made, let 
another chant the Psalms of David." 

t For a clear and satisfactory dissertation upon the value of the Apostoli- 
cal Constitutions, see Lar drier, vol. iv. p. 194, et seq. 

t u As this maybe one of the Councils you so unremittingly despise." A. 
P. P., Letter VIL 



27& ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

tion before us has reference to the canon, which, whether right 
or wrong, it believed to be Divine. I may observe, however, 
that while I embrace its admirable creed with cordial acquies- 
cence, I cannot but regret that so distinguished and venerable a 
body should have sanctioned the principle of religious persecu- 
tion, and indirectly, if not positively, endorsed the odious doc- 
trine, that pains, penalties, and civil disabilities were appropriate 
instruments for promoting uniformity of faith. The age of Con- 
stantine is, no doubt, a period in the history of the church upon 
which Romanists love to linger. Then were laid the founda- 
tions of that secular authority and that joyous and imposing 
pomp of ceremonial which subsequently enabled the Man of Sin 
to tread upon the necks of kings, to bind their nobles with fet- 
ters of iron, and to banish all that was pure and spiritual from 
the temple of God. 

" Ah, Constantine ! of how much ill was cause, 
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains 
That the first wealthy pope received of thee." 

1. But discarding all discussion of the merits of the Council, 
and of the peculiar corruptions of the age in which it was con- 
vened, let us confine ourselves to the matter in hand ; and en- 
deavor to ascertain whether the wickedness and folly, in refer- 
ence to the Scriptures, were perpetrated at Nice, which, upwards 
of twelve hundred years afterwards, formed a fit introduction to the 
atrocities of Trent. To discover the opinions of a council, the sim 
plest method is to appeal to the acts, the authentic proceedings of 
the body itself: but as in the creed, canons, and synodical epis- 
tle, the only clear and unquestionable monuments of the doings 
of Nice that have survived the ravages of time, not a single hint 
is given touching the books which the Fathers received as in- 
spired, you have been obliged to resort to collateral and indirect 
evidence, and that of the vaguest kind. The testimony upon 
which you have relied, is a passage of Jerome, and a few quota- 
tions found in the work of an obscure scribbler, Gelasius Cyzi- 
cenus. In replying to your arguments, I shall reverse the order 
in which you have marshalled your witnesses, and begin with 
Gelasius. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 279 

This writer has given us a history of the Council of Nice, 
written a hundred and fifty years after the body had been dis- 
solved, collected from documents of which nothing is known with 
certainty, and consequently nothing can be pronounced with con- 
fidence. He pretends to have preserved the discussions and de- 
bates which transpired in the Synod betwixt the orthodox and 
the Arians ; but speeches reported under such circumstances 
are evidently entitled to small consideration.* Worthless, how- 
ever, as his history is, you have appealed to it as possessing, upon 
this subject, " some value." " At the time," you inform us, 
( ' when Gelasius wrote, there were many monuments of the Coun- 
cil of Nice still extant, which have since perished. The senti 
ments of the Fathers could be easily ascertained, and it is utterly 
incredible that if they were unanimously opposed to the inspira- 
tion of any books of the Old Testament save those in the Jewish 
canon, he would have dared them to assert the contrary, or to 
put in their mouths expressions directly opposed to what they 
would have used." Let this be granted, and where is the proof 
that Gelasius attributed to the orthodox any sentiments, or "put 
into their mouths " any speeches inconsistent with a cordial re- 
jection of the whole Apocrypha from the list of inspired compo- 
sitions ? In the passages which you have adduced, he simply 
represents the Fathers as quoting the book of Baruch under the 
name of Jeremiah, and the book of Wisdom under the name of 
Solomon. Now it is perfectly conceivable that they might have 
appealed to these works, in their arguments against the Arians, 
as setting forth the sentiments of God's ancient and chosen peo- 
ple, upon the matter in dispute, without implying, or intending to 
imply, that their declarations were to be received as authoritative 
statements of truth. Their object might have been to show that 
the church, under the former dispensation, was as far removed 
from Arianism, as under the latter. These books were legiti- 
mate sources of proof as to the actual creed of the Jews, or at 
least a part of the nation, in the age of the writers, and there was 

* The reader may form some conception of the value of this historian from 
the " admonitio ad Lectorum" prefixed to his work in Labbaeus and Copart, 
vol. ii. p. 103. 



280 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

consequently no impropriety in using them, as a probable expo- 
sition of the national faith. In fact, they have been used in mod- 
ern times for precisely the same purpose, in the able work of 
Allix, entitled The Judgment of the Jewish Church against the 
Unitarians. " We make use of their authority," says he, "not to 
prove any doctrine which is in dispute, as if they contained a 
Divine Revelation, and a decision of an inspired writer, but to 
witness what was the faith of the Jewish Church in the time 
when the authors of those Apocryphal books did flourish."* 

It is hence, by no means, certain that the Fathers of Nice, 
if indeed they quoted the Apocrypha at all, intended to sanction 
the inspiration of the works. That they referred to Baruch 
under the name of Jeremiah, and to Wisdom under the name of 
Solomon, proves no more than that these were the ordinary and 
familiar titles of the books. If, however, you insist on the pro- 
position that nothing was quoted against the Arians which was 
not regarded by the council as inspired, and admit that Gelasius 
is a fit witness of what was quoted, your argument will prove a 
little too much. This writer testifies that the Fathers cited two 
grossly spurious documents — not only cited them, but cited them 
as Scripture, and cited them apparently to prove a doctrine. In 
the eighteenth chapter of the second book of his history, he ex- 
hibits at length the reply of the bishops to the Arian exposition 
of Proverbs viii. 22 : " The Lord possessed me in the beginning 
of his ways, before his works of old." In the course of the reply, 
which was intrusted to Eusebius, these words occur.* " Enough 
has been said, as it appears to me ; and the proofs have clearly 

* See Allix's Judgment of the Jewish Church, &c., c. v. p. 53. 

* Ikclvo. eivai [xoi Sokei to. Xe^devra. /cat at (nro3ei%£is -naptarriaav, a) (f>i\oco<p£ i OTt o 

V10S TOV QeOV EGTIV, Kdl TY)V £V Tto\ofl(x)VTl Tl \oyiGTlKr)V COCpldV KTIGCLS, Kdl TTaVTOi TO. 

KTtora, Kai ovk epyaXeiov, iva Ss coi craQearepav rr\v aXrjOr] twv TrpayfxaTCJv airodei^iv 
r, ap aarr\a a) [xev , kcli ra^tov eXdoi/xev ein tov vojiov tov rrpay^aTog, kcli Trig deojpias avrov, 
ra ek rrjs ypcKprjg Xc|a)jW£i/. (jleWwv o 7rpo(j)T]Tr)S ^Acoarjg £%i£vai tov fiiov, wj y£ypimrai £v 
fiifiXa) ava\rixp£Ojg Mcoaea)?, 7rpooKa\£o-ajji£vos Irjaovv viov Navr), kcu 6ia\£yofji£vog npog 
avrov, £(pr}' teat Trpo£Q£aaai to jus o Qeo$ xpo KaTafio'Xrig KOfff.iov, £ivai fxe Trig SiadrjKrig av- 
tov u£criTr}v. koli £v /?t/?Xcj \oycov \xvaTiKOiv Mwo-scoj, avTog Mwa^c -rrpouTre -K£pi tov 
Aapid kcu ^oXofjicjvTog. Gelasii Historia, lib. ii. c. 18. For a particular account 
of the apocryphal book called Assumption of Moses, see Fabricius Cod. Pseud. 
V. T. torn. i. p. 839. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. , 281 

shown, O philosopher, that the Son of God was the former of the 
rational wisdom spoken of by Solomon, and of all the creatures, 
and was not a mere instrument. But in order to exhibit the ex- 
position of this matter in a clearer light, and to come more 
speedily to the sense of the passage, we will declare certain 
things from the Scriptures. Moses, the prophet, when about to 
die, as it is written in the book of the Assumption of Moses, 
called to him Joshua, the son of Nun, and thus addressed him: 
'God foresaw, before the foundation of the world, that I should 
be the mediator of his testament, and in the book of the mystic 
speeches of Moses, Moses himself spake beforehand of David and 
Solomon/ " 

Here are two books, both of them confessedly apocryphal, 
one called the assumption of Moses, the other his mystic speech- 
es, which the historian Eusebius, in the name of all the bishops, 
is represented by Gelasius as employing under the title of Scrip- 
ture against the anonymous champion of Arianism. Now, you 
must either admit that Nice held these works. to be inspired, or 
deny that their citation of a book as Scripture is any proof that 
the Fathers received it as inspired. If you take the first propo- 
sition, and maintain that Nice canonized these books, why has 
Rome rejected them ? Upon what authority is the decision of 
the first general council set at naught and despised 1 Upon 
what grounds do you concur with Nice in receiving Judith, 
Baruch, and Wisdom, and refuse your assent when you have pre- 
cisely the same evidence that it sanctioned the inspiration of 
these legends of Moses ? But you cannot, as a consistent Ro- 
manist, admit that the assumption of Moses was treated as canon- 
ical at Nice. If not, then its quotation of a book is no proof 
that the work was held to be inspired, and you have consequently 
lost your labor in proving that it quoted Baruch, Judith, and 
Wisdom. It deserves, however, to be remarked, that if you had 
succeeded in your design, you would have sapped the foundation 
of the principal excuse which Bellarmin offers for the heresy of 
Jerome, in rejecting all of the Apocrypha, with the exception of 
Judith, from the canon. * "I admit, " says he, " that Jerome 

* Admit-to igitnr Hieronymum in ea fuiss? opinione, quia nondum generate 

13* 



282 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

was of this opinion, because as yet no general Council had de- 
termined any thing concerning any of these books, with the ex- 
ception of Judith, which Jerome afterwards received. " And yet, 
according to you, a general Council had determined something, 
Baruch and Wisdom were put upon the same footing with Ju- 
dith. Thus Priest contradicts Priest and Jesuit devours Jesuit. 
2. Let us now turn to the testimony of Jerome. In his pre- 
face to the Book of Judith, he observes : " But because the 
Council of Nice is read to have counted this book in the num- 
ber of Sacred Scriptures, I have complied with your request or 
rather demand." * It will be observed here that Jerome does 
not state the fact upon his own authority, he was not even born 
when the Council of Nice was assembled ; but upon the author- 
ity of a nameless writer, whose book it does not appear had ever 
been seen by himself. " It is read," says he ; but where and by 
whom 1 To these questions the Father furnishes no manner of 
reply. We have then not Jerome, but an anonymous scribbler, 
of whom nothing is known but his obscurity, testifying to the 
reception on the part of Nice of the book of Judith. Com- 
pletely, therefore, without foundation is the bold statement of 
Bellarmin, that Jerome opposed the authority of Nice to the 
opinion of the Jewish Church, and was himself a witness that the 
Nicene Synod had received the book of Judith into the Canon 
of Scripture. f That somebody, no one knows who, had some- 
where, no one knows where, read or heard that this was the case, 

concilium de his libris aliquid statuerat, excepto libro Judith, quern etiam Hier- 
onymus postea recepit. — Bellar. de Verbo Dei, lib. i. cap. 10. 

* Sed quia hunc Librum synodus Nicaena in numero S. Scripturarum legi- 
tur computasse acquievi postulationi vestrae, immo exactioni. — S. Hier. Proef. 
in Libr. Judith. 

t Librum Judith egregium testimonium habere a synodo Nicsena 1. Om- 
nium synod orum generalium prima et celeberrima, testatur S. Hieronymus prae- 
fatione in Judith. Ac ne forte Kenilius dicat librum Judith sanctum esse, sed 
non plenae auctoritatis ad fidei dogmata confirmanda notanda sunt verba S. 
Hieronymi: asserit enim sanctissimus Doctor, apud Hebreeos librum Judith 
numerari in Sanctis libris, qui tamen non sint idonei ad dogmata fidei compro- 
banda : deinde huic Hebrarorum sententiae opponit Nicaenae synodi auctorita- 
tem : igitur teste Hieronymo, Nicasna synodus librum Judith ita retulit in 
numerum sacrorum libromm, ut eum idoneum esse consuerit ad fidei dogmata 
confirmanda. — Bellar. de Verbo Dei, lib. i. cap. 12. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REPUTED, 283 

is the sum and substance of what Jerome asserts — a precious 
testimony truly ! 

1. That Jerome himself did not believe his anonymous wit- 
ness — that he referred to the matter simply as a rumor and not 
as a fact, * may be gathered from his own account of the book 
of Judith. In his preface to the books of Solomon he says, 
" The church indeed reads the book of Judith, but does not re- 
ceive it among the canonical Scriptures. "f Again, in the Pro- 
logus Galeatus — " the book of Judith is not in the canon."! If 
he believed that the Council of Nice truly represented the faith 
of the church, and yet believed that, according to the faith of 
the church, the book of Judith was not canonical, he must have 
believed that the nameless author to whom he alludes had either 
ignorantly or wilfully lied. There was no alternative. If this 
author told the truth, Judith was canonical, and the church re- 
ceived it as such ; but Judith was not canonical, says Jerome, 
and the church did not receive it as such : therefore, this author, 
could not have spoken the truth. This reasoning can be evaded, 
only by saying, that Nice did not represent the faith of the 
church, that is, that the 318 Bishops who were assembled there, 
did not know the books which were generally received as in- 
spired — a supposition too absurd to receive a moment's atten- 
tion. 

2. It is susceptible of the clearest demonstration, that the 
prominent actors in the Synod of Nice, received neither Judith, 
nor any of the books which Protestants reject, as a part of the 
canon ; a fact which is wholly inexplicable, if Jerome's witness 
is worthy of credit. Eusebius, who, according to Gelasius, was 
more than once the organ of the Council, and who certainly 

* Erasmus and Stapleton so understood the matter. Erasmus says : — Non 
affirmat Hieronymus approbatum fuisse hunc librum Judith in synodo Nicsena, 
sed ait, in numero est literarum Legitur computasse. — Erasm. in Cens. Prafat. 
Hieron. Stapleton says : — Hieronymus hoc de synodo Nicaena tantum exeama 
referre videtur. Synodus, inquit, Legitur computasse, nam alibi aperte dubitat. 
— Lib. ix. Princip. c. 12. 

t Librum Judith legit quidem Ecclesia,sed eum inter canonicas Scripturas 
non recipit. — S. Hier. Proef. in Libr. Salom. 

X Liber Judith non est in canon.e— S. Hierinproh gal 



284 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

must have known all of importance that transpired in the body, 
has not only left no intimations, in any of his writings, that Ju- 
dith was so conspicuously honored, but uniformly treats the 
whole Apocrypha as disputed and uninspired compositions. In 
the twelfth chapter ot the sixth book of his Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, he speaks of the Wisdom of Solomon and of Jesus the Son 
of Sirach, as works which were not admitted into the canon.* 
In the second book of his Chronicles, f according to the ver- 
sion of Jerome, he distinguishes betwixt the Maccabees and the 
inspired records of the Jews, and places the former in the same 
category with the writings of Josephus and Julius Africanus ; 
and expressly states that they were not received among Sacred 
Scriptures. " From the time of Zerubbabel," he states in the 
eighth book of the Demonstratio Evangelica, \ " to the time 
of the Saviour, no Divine book was published." And Jerome 
informs us that he pronounced the additions to Daniel to be to- 
tally destitute of Divine authority.^ 

Athanasius, another prominent member of the Council of 
Nice, expressly rejects the Apocrypha from any claim to inspira- 
tion. He speaks of Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, Tobit, the additions 
to Esther, and Judith, as valuable books for beginners and those 
who were recently converted to Christianity, but as forming no 
part of the Canon of Scripture. It was the peculiar prerogative 
of the twenty-two books which the Jews admitted and which 
Protestants receive, according to him, to be the fountains of sal- 
vation — the infallible source of religious truth. || 

* J^.£^pr]raL d J ev avroig kcli raig airo raiv avriXty/xsvcov ypatytov ixaprvpiaig. rrjg re 
\eyoyevrjg LoAojucoVros cofyiag, kcu mg Irjcrov rov Hipa%, Kai rrjg -rrpog TLfipaiovg etna- 
To\rjg, rr,g re T>apva(3a nut KA£/.<£vro? Kai lovSa. Eusebii Pamphili Historiae 

Eccles. lib. vi. 13. 

t Hue usque Divinae Scripturae Hebraec-rum Annales temporum continent. 
Ea vero quae posthaec apud eos gesta sunt, exhibeo de Libro Maccabaeorum, et 
Josephi, et Afrieani scriptis. — Euseb. Chron. 1, 2, juxta versionem S. Hieron. 

t Qv ov *a0' rj[juv Svvarov Et-aKpiffafadailra yivr]rco i [xr)Ss (pspecdai Beiav pifiXov f| 
extivov. Kai ^XP 1 T0)V T0L ^wt"^ 00 ? X9 0v0iv ' Euseb. Demon. Evang. Lib. viii. 

§ Et miror quosdam, &c., cum et origines et Eusebius et Apollinarius alii- 
que Ecclesiastici viri et Doctores Graeciae has visiones non haberi apud Hebrasos 
fateantur, nee de debere respondere Porphyrio pro his quae nullam scriptural 
sacrae auctoritatem praebeant — S. Hier. Proem. Com. in Daniel. 

|| Athanastius as above. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 285 

Betwixt the Synod of Nice and Jerome, we have a succession 
of distinguished writers, Epiphanius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory, 
Nazianzen, and Amphilochius, together with the Council of La- 
odicea, all, as we shall subsequently see, concurring, not in the 
rejection of Judith only, but of the whole Apocrypha, from any 
pretensions to canonical authority. None seem to have known 
or ever to have heard that any such event took place at Nice as 
Jerome says had been somewhere read to have happened. Is it 
credible, that if Nice had canonized Judith, all of these writers, 
some of whom were members of the body, should have been pro- 
foundly ignorant of the fact ? How comes it that not one of 
them has alluded to it, but that all have spoken as if no such event 
had ever taken place? I cannot better express this argument 
than in the words of a distinguished papist, Lindanus, the Bish- 
op 6f Rurmonde:* "If the Nicene Council held the book of 
Judith and the other books of that rank to be canonical, why did 
the Council of Laodicea, eighty years afterwards, omit it? And 
why did Nazianzen make no mention of it? St. Hierome seems 
to me to speak as one thdXdoubted of it, unless a man might think 

* Si enim Nicena synodus librum Judith cum aliis in canotiem redegerat, 
cur annis 80, post eum non accensit Laodicena 1 Cur Nazianzenus ejus non 
meminit? sed legitur computasse (ait Hieronymus) qui mihi dubitantis sus- 
picionem subindicare videtur. Nisi fortasse quis opinetur hunc de libris canon- 
icis Nicenum canonem una cum plurimis aliis, minimum (uti equidem arbitror) 
47. Teste Divo Julio primo Romano ; hsereticorum fraude fuisse accisum , 
atque sublectum Ecclesias. Cui ne sufTragemur,cogit pia de sanctissimis patri- 
bus in concilio Laodiceno congregatis, existimatio. Non illos ea aetate, qua 
canonum scientia imprimis ornabat Episcopos, tarn fuisse sui et nominis et of- 
ficii oblitos, ut illos aut nescierint, aut desideratos non requisierint. Ad haec si 
vere legitur quod ait Hieronymus legi, librum Judith, concilium Nicaenum inter 
canonicas computasse ; quid sibi vult quod idem praefatione in libris salomonis 
scribit. Ecclesiam libros Judith, Tobiae, Maceaebeorum legere quidem, sed 
inter canonicas scripturas non recipere, hue usque Lindamus dubitantes instar, 
subjungit definientes more, verum nihil hac de re in concilio Niceno fuisse de- 
finitum, ut existimem invitat quod hunc Laodicenum de scripturis canonicis 
canonem, una cum reliquis, synodus Constantinopolitana sexta in Trullo appro- 
barit, quod minime videtur fuisse factura, si designatum a 318, illis patribus 
Nicenis doclessimus juxta ac sanctissimis Laodiceni aut non recipissent, aut de- 
curtassent sacrarum scripturarum canonem. — Rainoldus de Libris Apocryphis, 
Pr&lectio. xv. 



286 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

that this and many more decrees besides, which the Council of 
Nice made, were afterwards pared away from it by fraudulent 
heretics : whereunto I cannot give my consent for the religious 
honor that I bear to the fathers of Laodicea, who in that age, 
when Bishops knew the canons of the church best, and when it 
was their great commendation to be skilful in them, could not be 
so far negligent, both of their credit and their duty, as neither to 
know them if they were extant, nor to seek after them if they 
were lost. Besides, if that were true, which, St. Hierome says, 
was read of the Book of Judith, that the Nicene Fathers took it 
into the canon, how shall we construe that which he writes in 
his preface before the books of Solomon, ' that though the 
church indeeds reads the history of Judith and Tobit, &,c, yet 
it doth not receive them into tbe number of Canonical Scrip- 
ture?' But that the Nicene Council determined nothing in this 
matter, I am the rather induced to believe, for the Sixth General 
Council at Constantinople approved the canon of Laodicea, 
which it would never have done, if the Fathers that met there 
had either rejected or mutilated the canon of Nice." 

The reasoning of the Bishop, coupled with the considerations 
which have already been adduced, seems' to be conclusive. The 
first General Synod of the Christian church, whatever other fol- 
lies it was permitted to perpetrate, was kept, in the merciful 
providence of God, from corrupting those records of eternal truth 
from which its sublime and memorable creed may be most tri- 
umphantly deduced. A pure faith has nothing to apprehend 
from unadulterated Scriptures. 

II. It is unnecessary to notice what you have said of the Pro- 
vincial Synod at Alexandria, held in the year 339, or of the 
General Council at Constantinople, convened in 381. The prin- 
ciples of criticism, which have been repeatedly developed in the 
course of this discussion, furnish an abundant explanation of the 
real value of the quotations on which you have relied. In regard 
to Gregory Nazianzen, in particular, through whom you have rep- 
resented the Council of Constantinople as endorsing the books 
of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, I shall have occasion, hereafter, 
to show, that you have been grossly seduced into error. His 
testimony is clear and explicit, for the Jewish canon ; and if he 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 287 

has quoted — as I am willing to admit that he has done — if he 
has quoted the Apocrypha as Scripture, or Divine Scripture, this 
fact only strengthens the position that such expressions were 
generic terms, comprehending the entire department of religious 
literature whether inspired or not. 

III. I come now to the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, 
which, as their testimony on this subject is one, I shall treat as 
one ; and as my object is not to puzzle but convince, I shall 
take no advantage of the difficulties which press the Roman Doc- 
tors in determining which of the Carthaginian Councils it was 
that enacted the famous decree touching the canonical books of 
Scripture. That decree is usually printed in the collections, as 
the forty-seventh canon of the third Council of Carthage, held in 
the year 397, and, so far as the writings of the Old Testament 
are concerned, is in these words :* " Moreover it is ordained 
that nothing beside the canonical Scriptures be read in the 
church under the name of Divine Scripture ; and the canonical 
Scriptures are these : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 
Deuteronomy, Joshua the Son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, Four Books 
of the Kingdoms, two Books of Chronicles, Job, David's Psalter, 
Five Books of Solomon, the Books of the Twelve Prophets, 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Two 
Books of Esdras, Two Books of the Maccabees. " 

Now the question is, what are we to understand by the 
phrase, "canonical Scriptures, " as used in this decree? If it 
is synonymous with inspired Scriptures, then indeed you have 
produced a witness that the Apocrypha are entitled to Di- 
vine authority. If, on the other hand, it means something 
else, something quite distinct from inspired Scripture, then 

* Item placuit, ut praeter scripturas canonicas, nihil in ecclesia legitur sub 
nomine divinarum scripturarum. Sunt autem canonicae scripturae, Genesis, 
Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium, Jesus Nave, Judicum, Ruth, Reg- 
norum libri quatuor, Paralipomenoni libri duo, Job, Psalterium Davidicum, Sal- 
omonis libri quinque, libri duodecim Prophetarum, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, 
Danie), Tobias, Judith, Esther, Esdrae libri duo, Machabaeorum libri duo. Novi 
autem Testamenti Evangeliorum libri quatuor, Actuum Apostolorum liber unus, 
Pauli apostoli epistolas tredecim, ejusdem ad Hebraeos una, Petri apostoli duae, 
Joannis apostoli tres, Judae apostoli una, Jacobi una, Apocalypsis Joannis liber 
unus. — Concilium Carthagin, iii. cap. 48. 



288 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

your cause, condemned by the voice of three centuries, is left 
without even the African protection which you had vainly hoped 
to find in the close of the fourth. Nay, if it could be proved 
that the Council of Carthage intended in this canon, to enumer- 
ate the books which were held to be inspired, the only protec- 
tion which Rome could receive from it is the " protection which 
vultures give to lambs. " It is as much the interest of Papists as 
of Protestants to find a meaning which, without doing violence 
to the terms that are employed, shall be consistent with itself, 
and with the known opinions of the age, and at the same time 
exonerate the fathers from the charge of ignorance, folly, and 
wickedness, to which, if it was their purpose to draw up a list of 
the writings that had been given by inspiration of God, they are 
in some degree exposed. It cannot be denied that they were 
foolish, ignorant, and wicked, if they pronounced any book to be 
inspired without sufficient evidence; and it is equally indisputa- 
ble that no such evidence could have been possessed in behalf of 
any work which the Church, in every age before and after this 
provincial Synod, has concurred in rejecting as Apocryphal. 
And yet a book which, in the papal editions of the Bible, is 
placed, by authority, extra seriem canonicorum librorum, which 
has evidently no claims to inspiration, and which the Christian 
world, according to the showing of Romanists themselves, has 
never received as the word of God, is inserted by Carthage in 
its list of canonical books. Who can believe, who can even con- 
ceive, that it was the intention of the Fathers to outrage the sen- 
timents of the rest of Christendom, and to incur the awful male- 
diction of those who add to the words of Divine Revelation ? To 
have perpetrated a deed of this sort, amid the light with which 
they were surrounded, a light so bright, that it has penetrated 
even to the darkened chambers of the papacy, would have mani 
fested a degree of impiety and blasphemy, which we cannot 
attribute to a body of which Augustine was a member. You, 
however, in the interpretation which you have given of their for- 
ty-seventh canon, have charged it upon them. It is susceptible 
of the clearest proof, that the two books of Esdras, which they 
have mentioned in their list, include the third. What, in the 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 289 

Latin, Bellarmin himself admits,* is denominated the third 
book of Esdras, is, in the Greek copies of the Bible, entitled the 
first. What is, in the Latin, the Jirst and second, constitute in 
Greek but one volume, and are styled the second book of Esdras. 
So that, according to the Greek numeration, the first and second 
books of Esdras comprehend the Apocryphal third. Bellarmin 
has again informed us,* that at the time when the Council of 
Carthage was convened, the universal Church used that transla- 
tion of the Bible which Jerome was accustomed to call the Vul- 
gate, and which was made from copies of the Septuagint, includ- 
ing the additions of the Hellenistic Jews. Hence, the Bibles 
of the Fathers at Carthage, under the name of two hooks of Es- 
dras, embraced not only Nehemiah and Ezra, but that very third 
book of Esdras which Rome declares to be Apocryphal. :j: Now 

* Nee minor est difficultas de lib. iii. Esdrae ; nam in Graecis codicibus ipse 
est, qui dicitur primus Esdrae, et qui apud nos dicuntur primus et secundus, in 
Graeco dicuntur secundus Esdrae. Quo circa versimile est, antiqua concilia et 
patres, cum ponunt in can one duos libros Esdrse, intelligere nomine duorum lib- 
rorum omnes tres. Sequebantur. enim versionem septuaginta interpretum, apud 
quos tres nostri duo libri Esdrae nominantur. — Bellar. de Verio Dei, lib. i. 
cap. 20. 

t Utebatur autem eo tempore universa Ecclesia libris sacris juxta earn edi- 
tionem, quam S. Hieronymus praesatione in librum Esther, et saepe alibi, vul- 
gatam appellare solet, quae, ut ipse ait, Graecorum lingua et Uteris continetur. 
— Bellar. de Verbo Dei, lib. i. cap. 7. 

t As the following extract so ably refutes Bellarmin's evasions, the reader, 
I hope, will excuse its length : — 

Potest autem id videri falsum, Aug-ustinum scilicet et Carthaginensi concil- 
ium adnumerasse tertium Esdrae canonicis, cum duos tantum ejus libros in ca- 
none consignando nominent, sed si penitus introspicere volueritis, sub duorum 
nomine tertium quoque comprehendi intelligeris. Quod ut vobis planum fiat, 
principio notandum secus collocari libros Esdrae in Graeca editione quam in La- 
tina. Qui enim Latinis tertius, is est Graecis primus, qui Latinis primus et se- 
cundus, ii Graecis in unum volumen compinguntur, cui nomen Esdrae quod 
vero primum et secundum Esdrae unum Graeci numerent, ut Hieronymus docet, 
inde fieri id potuit, quia Hebrari sic numerant. Quod tertium Esdrae praefii- 
gant, inde videtur effectum, quia ille liber historiam paulo alius repetit. Fuisse 
autem primum Graecis, qui est Latinis tertius, manifestum est, quod si teste opus 
sit, fidem faciat Athanasius, qui in enumeratione librorum duos Esdrae nominat, 
priorem cujus initium est, et obtulit Josias Pascha, etc., et posteriorem, cujus 
initium esse dicit in anno primo Cyri, Regis Persarum, etc., quae duo cum sint 



290 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

my argument is briefly this : if the Carthaginian Fathers in- 
tended to settle the canon of inspiration, they were guilty of great 
folly and wickedness ; but the character of the men, particu- 
larly of Augustine, shows that they were not liable to such a 

initia tertii et primi libri, clarissimum inde est, tertium ab eo primum numera- 
tum, secundum et primum ut secundum. Nam in quod Latinis Athanasii ex- 
emplaribus in margine adscripsit nescio quis (atqui hoc principium est capitis 
trigesimiquinti paralipomenon) per imperitatem factum est. Non enim ani- 
madvertit ille quisquis fuit, eadem verba exordiri tertium Esdrae, sed animad- 
vertere id debuerat, atque errorem suum corrigere ex eodem capite, ubi Athan- 
asius agens de primo Esdrae, enumerat ea prope omnia, quae sunt in tertio Es- 
drae, adscripsit autem ille idem (ut videtur) hsec haberi capite tertio et quarto 
libri secundi. 

Id eo modo observatum est in Graecis Bibliorum editionibus ; nominatum in 
ea quae Venetiisex Aldi officina exivit, ubi cum duo tantum habeantur libri Es- 
drae, primus exorditur, quomodo noster tertius, secundus iisdem plane verbis, 
quibus Latina editio primum Esdrae inchoat. Ita manifestum est et antiquitus 
Athanasii tempore, et ab ejus seculo in Graecis editionibus veteris. Testamenti 
duobus Esdrae libris tertium comprehendi. In quo obiter notandum, doctissi- 
mos viros Franciscum Vatablum, Franciscum Junium,et Franciscum Lucam, eo 
parum animadverto, existimavisse tertium Esdrae Greece non extare. Vatablus 
quidem tertium Esdrae Greece nee sibi contigisse dicit videre, nee cuiquam 
quod sciat alteri. Quomodo etiam Junius, Herae libros duos, neque Hebraeice, 
neque Graece vidi (in quit ille) aut fuisse visos memini legere. Franciscus Lu- 
cas, paulo asseverantius tertium Esdrae nullo alio sermone extare ait praeterquam 
Latino. In quam ille opinione inductus erat eo, quod neque in complutensibus 
exemplaribus, neque in Bibliis sequitur Nehemiam, sed in earn partem rejicitur, 
ubi Apocryphi ponentur. Hoc tandum Lucas vidit, et agnovit, et confessus est 
se deceptum, etc., sed quod ad rem praesentem facit, affirmat ibi Lucas, tertium 
Esdrae Latinorum, esse primum Graecis. Atque hoc est, quod primum observa- 
tum volui, proximo loco animadvertere deletis Augustinum et patres Cartha- 
ginenses in canone consignando, et alios in disputationibus fuit translatione 
Latina e Graeca 70, editione versa, uti consuevisse, quod ipse planum facit ubi 
citato illo loco. Etformavit Deas hominem pulverem de terra : subjungit, sicut 
Graeci codices habent, unde in Latinam linguam scriptura ipsa conversa est. Man- 
ifestos autem id dicit, ubi rem ex professo disputat. Nam cum fuerint (inquit 
Augustinus) et alii interpretes, etc., hanc tamen, quae septuaginta est, tanquam 
sola esset, sic recipit Ecclesia, eaque utuntur Graeci populi Christiani, quorum 
plerique utrum alia sit aliqua ignorant. Ex hac 70, interpretatione etiam in 
Latinam linguam interpretatum est, quod Ecclesiae Latinae tenent, quamvis non 
demerit ternporibus nostris presbyter Hieronymus homo doctissimus, et omnium 
trium linguarum peritus, qui non ex Graeco, sed ex Hebraeo in Latinum eloqui- 
um easdem scripturas convertit, ac qui sequuntur. Ex ut disertis verbis Augus- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 291 

charge ; therefore, they did not intend to determine the canon of 
inspired books. 

This conclusion is confirmed by the fact, that the decree 
itself was conditional ; the church beyond the sea, as we gather 

tinus non solum se usum ilia Septuaginta interpretum versione significat, sed 
et earn perinde quasi sola esset, ab Ecclesia receptam, et Ecclesiam Latinam, 
quod tenet id ex ilia interpretatione tenere, adeo ut quamvis, Augustini tempor- 
ibus Hieronymus summa fide ex Hebraicis fontibus converteret, Ecclesia tamen 
praeferret earn editionem, quae ex Graeca 70. Latina facta est. Id quod et loco 
superiore docuit Augustinus, et praecipue in Epistolis, ubi ad Hieronymum sic 
scribit. Ego sane te mallem Graecas potius canonicas nobis interpretari scrip- 
turas, quae 70, interpretum authoritate perhibentur. Perdurum erit enim, si 
tua interpretatio per multas Ecclesias frequentius ceperit lectitari, quod a Graecis 
Ecclesiis Latinae Ecclesiae dissonabunt, etc., et alibi petit a Hieronymo, ut in- 
terpretationem suam Bibliorum e 70, mittat. Ideo autem (inquit) desidero 
interpretationem tuam de 70, ut et tanta Latinorum, qui qualescunque hoc ausi 
sunt, quantum possumus imperitia careamus : et hi qui me invidere putant utili- 
bus laboribus tuis, eandem aliquando si fieri potest, intelligant, propterea me 
nolle tuam ex Hebraeo interpretationem in Ecclesiis legi. Ne contra Septua- 
ginta auctoritatem, tanquam novum aiiquid proferentes, magno scandalo pertur- 
bemus plebes Christi, quarum aures et corda illam interpretationem audire con- 
sueverunt, quae ab apostolis approbata est. Denique in libris de Doctrina Chris- 
tiana, vult ille Latinos codices veteris testamenti, si necesse fuerit, Graecorum 
auctoritate emendandos et eorum potissimum, qui cum 70 essent, ore uno inter- 
pretate esse perhibentur, etc., locus consuiatur. Neque vero haec Augustinus 
solum luculente testatur, sed et reliqui scriptores, qui in eum commentarios 
scripserunt, vel de eo loquuti sunt. In quibus Ludovicus vires in praefatione 
comment, ait Augustinum versonem 70, interpretum ubique adducere. Et in 
ipsis commetariis ostendit (inquit) olim Ecclesias Latinas usas interpretatione 
Latina ex 70, versa, non hac Hieronymi, ut mirer esse qui tantum nefas existi- 
ment translationes attingi, modo sobrie ac prudenter fiat. 

Sixtus Senensis duas fuisse docet in Ecclesia Latinas editiones V. T. no- 
ram scilicet ac veterem. Vetus decidem (inquit ille) vulgatae et communis 
nomen accepit, turn quia nullum certum haberet auctorem, turn quia non de He- 
braeo fonte, sed de koivtj, vel de Septuaginta interpretatione sumpta esset, quern 
admodum August 18, De Civit. Dei, c. 43, et Hieronymus in praefatione Evan- 
geliorum testantur, cujus lectione usa est Ecclesia longe ante tempora Hierony- 
mi, ac etiam multo post, usque ad tempora Gregorii Papae. Nova vero a Hie- 
ronymo non de Graeca, sed de Hebraica veritate in Latinum eloquium versa 
est : qua Ecclesia usque, ab ipsis Gregorii temporibus, una cum veteri editione 
usa est. Utriusque enim Gregorius in praefatione moralium meminit, inquiens : 
Novam translationem deferro, sed cum probationis causa me exigit, nunc veter- 
em, novam pro testimonio assumo : ut quia sedes Apost. cui aut hore Deo prae- 



292 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

from an ancient note, was to be consulted for its confirmation^ 
The Council of Carthage, then, received the books mentioned in 
its list as canonical, provided the transmarine churches would 

fideo utraque utitur, mei quoque labor studii ex utroque fulciatur. Haec apud 
Sixtum, unde liquet longe ante tempora Hieronymi, ad usque Gregorium, (quasi 
ad 600 annos) in usu fuisse translatione Latinam e Graeca 70. Adeoque recte 
colligi Augustinum et Carthageniensis concilii patres editionem illam Graecam 
70, sequutos esse. Quid quod Bellarminus ipse hoc agnoscit, veteres sequutos 
esse versionem septuaginta 1 apud quos (inquit) qui nobis Esdrae tertius est, fuit 
primus, siccine 1 quomodo ergo te expedies e laqueo rationis nostrae 1 conatur 
ille quidem expedire se, sedhaeret ut mus in pisa. Majorem revera ait esse dif- 
ficultatem de tertio, Esdrae quam de quarto. Sed respondet, etsi duo libri Graec- 
orum sint nostris tertius, non tamen sequi patres antiquos cum duos Esdrae in 
canone ponant, nostras tres intellexisse, quid ita? quatuor nimirum rationes ad- 
hibet e quibus pleraeque non attingunt nostram sententiam, certe nullae labe- 
factant. 

Prima ratio haec est. Quia Melito, Epiphanius, Hilarius, Hieronymus, 
Ruffinus, aperte sequuti sunt Hebraeos, qui tertium Esdrae non agnoscunt, quid 
turn ? Ergone Augustinus cum duos Esdrae accenseat, non intellexit nostras tres ? 
quia scilicet. Melito, Epiphanius, Hilarius, Hieronymus, Ruffinus, aperte se- 
quuti sunt Hebraeos. Ergo Augustinus non est sequutus editionem Graecam 
Septuaginta ? perinde ratiocinatur ac siquis diceret Socrates, Plato, veteres aca- 
demici vocarunt Deum ideam boni, etc. Ergo ac Aristoteles et Peripateti- 
corum schola sic vocavit, si nondum appareat hujus rationis infirmitas, at fa- 
cimile apparebit in ratione simtli quam adjungam. Melito, Epiphanius, Hil- 
arius, Hieronymus et Ruffinus rejecerunt e canone sacrarum Scripturarum libros 
Sapientiae, Ecclesiastici, Tobiae, Judith, etc., ergo et Augustinus hos rejecit, et 
concilium Carthaginensi, haec nisi ratio firma sit, videtis quam infirma sit altera. 
Secunda Bellarmini ratio ea est a precibus publicis et usu Ecclesiastico of- 
ficii. Quia jam diu nihil legitur ex illo libro in officio Ecclesiastico, quid inde ? 
An ergo Augustinus cum duos Esdrae libros in canone numeraret, non intellexit 
nostras tres ? aut Augustini tempore a patribus Carthaginensibus non habeba- 
tur tertius Esdrae in canonicis 1 perinde hoc est ac siquis ita ratiocinetur. Ex- 
ulat jam diu papatus ex Anglia, ergo Henrici VI. tempore exulavit. Imo ab- 
surdior ilia ratio quam haec, quo proprius abfuit ab aetate nostra Henrici VI. Reg- 
num, quam Augustini temporae, cum ille ab hinc non ultra 100 annos floruerit, 
ab Augustino ultra 1000 effluxerint, quo temporis decursu multa mutari pote- 
rant, Bellarminus enim ipse fatetur, Augustini tempore monachos tonderi solitos 
fuisse, suo vadi, potuit tamen simili ratione uti. Jamdiu in usu fuit, ut rede- 
rentur monachi, ergo August, tempore non solebam tonderi. 

Sed fortasse tertia ratio subtilior, que ab auctoritate Gelasii ducitur. Is nam- 

que unum tantum Esdrae librum in canone ponit, id est (inquit Bellar.) nostros 

uos, optime, conceditur enim, postea rem penitus introspiciemus, et videb> 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 293 

consent. Surely it could not mean that these books are inspired, 
provided the transmarine churches will agree that they are so. 
The evidence of their inspiration was either complete to the Coun- 
cil, or it was not. If it was complete, they were bound, as 
faithful ministers of Christ, to say unconditionally and absolutely 
that these books belong to the rule of faith. Under such cir- 
cumstances, to have enacted a conditional decree, was treason 
against truth, and impiety to God. Why consult the church 
beyond the sea, in regard to a matter which was unquestioned 
and notorious ? If, on the other hand, the evidence was not 
complete or satisfactory, in regard to the inspiration of the books, 
why make a canon, until doubts were settled, and difficulties 
resolved 1 If the object of appealing to the transmarine churches 
was to obtain more light, why did the Fathers undertake to act 
until the light had been supplied 1 It cannot be pretended that 
their intention was to procure the confirmation of the Holy See. 
It is not the Pope alone, nor a general Council that they proposed 
to consult — it was the church beyond the sea — transmarina ec- 
clesia — the Bishop of Rome, or the other Bishops of those parts, 
and if every Bishop and Doctor connected with this church, 
with Boniface himself at their head, had been assembled in coun- 
cil, and had given their decision, their voice would have been 
only the voice of a Provincial Synod, and, therefore not entitled 
to be received, according to your doctrine, as the infallible dic- 

mus utrum unum ille tantum numeret. Interim concedant Gelasium, qui vixit 
centum annos post Aug. et Carthag. Cone, unum tantum Esdrae lib. in canone 
posuisse, quid vero hoc ad August, et Carthag. patres 1 An deinde illi non nu- 
merarunt duos 1 an duorum nomine nostros tres non significarunt 1 Quid ni 
ergo sic ratiocinent M. Crassus partib. optimatum favit, ergo C. Marius non 
fuit popularis ] Haec argumenta si in nostris scholis supponerentur, credo vide- 
rentur a pueris, verum cum superuntur a Jesuitis, quodam ni fallor Kpvxf/ecos arti- 
ficio insolubilia habebuntur. 

Verum enim vero fortassis artificio Rhetorum firmissimam rationem pos- 
tremo loco reservavit. Ea erit palmaria. Namque Hieronymus (inquit Bel- 
larminus) aperte docet, tertium EsdraB non modo non apud Hebraeos haberi, sed 
neque apud Septuaginta. An id aperte docet Hier. 1 eo certe delapsum esse 
Bell, miror, consulite Hieron, (videbitis eum non modo aperte docere, quae ei 
affingit Bellar. : sed nee omnino, imo contrarium statuere, qui consensu anti- 
quorum, qui testimoniis, e tertio Esdrae persaepe usi, postea mihi pluribus erit 
confirmandum.) — Eainoldus, de Libris Apocryphis, Tralectio xxviii. 



294 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

tate of the Holy Ghost. The conduct of the Carthaginian Fa- 
thers, in passing a conditional decree, if their design was to settle 
the canon of inspiration, is wholly inexplicable. They virtually 
say, we have satisfactory evidence that these books are inspired, 
and yet it is not satisfactory. Such egregious trifling cannot be 
imputed to them, and therefore, some interpretation must be evi- 
dently put upon the canon, which shall justify their appeal to a 
foreign church. 

No better way is left us of arriving at a just conception of 
this matter, than by considering the testimony of Augustine, who 
was himself a member of the Council, and who may be presumed 
to have known the real intentions of the body. His opinions 
may be taken as a true exponent of the opinions of the African 
church. This illustrious advocate of the doctrines of grace, has 
given us a list of the canonical Scriptures which coincides pre- 
cisely with the catalogue of Carthage ;* and yet there is abun- 
dant proof that several of the books which are mentioned in his 
list, Augustine did not believe to be inspired. 

* Totus autem canon Scrip turarum, in quo istam considerationem versan- 
dam dicimus, his libris continetur. Quinque Moyseos, id est Genesi, Exodo, 
Levitico, Numeris, Deuteronomio ; ac uno libro Jesu Nave, uno Judicum, uno 
libello qui appellatur Ruth, qui magis ad Regnorum principium videtur pertinere ; 
deinde quatuor Regnorum et duobus Paralipomenon, non consequentibus, sed qua- 
si a latere adjunctis simulque pergentibus. Hasc est historia, qua? sibimet annexa 
tempora continet, atque ordinem rerum : sunt aliae tamquam ex diverso ordine, 
quae neque huic ordine, neque inter se connectuntur, sicut est Job, et Tobias, et 
Esther, et Judith, et Machabaeorum libri duo, et Esdrae duo, qui magis subsequi 
videntur ordinatam illam historiam usque ad Regnorum vel Paralipomenon ter- 
minatam deinde prophetae, in quibus David unus liber Psalmorum, et Salmonis 
tres, Proverbiorum, Cantica Canticorum, et Ecclesiastes. Nam illi duo libri, 
unus qui Sapientia, que alius qui Ecclesiasticus inscribitur, de quodam simili- 
tudine Salomonis esse dicuntur : nam Jesus Sirach eos conscripsisse constan- 
tissime perhibetur, quitame quoniam in auctoritatem recipi meruerunt, inter pro- 
pheticos numerandi sunt. Reliqui sunt eorumlibri, qui proprie prophetae appellan- 
tur, duodecim prophetarum libri singuli, qui connexi subimet, quoniam numquam 
sejuncti sunt, pro uno habentur : quorum prophetarum nomina sunt haec, Osee, 
Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Michceas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, 
Zacharias, Malachias : deinde quatuor prophetae sunt majorum voluminum, 
Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel ; his quadraginta quatuor libris ; Testamenti 
veteris terminatur auctoritas. — S. Augustini Episcopi de Doctrina Christiana, 
lib. ii. cap. 8. 






APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 295 

In the twenty fourth chapter of the seventeenth book of his 
City of God, he remarks* " that in all the time after their re- 
turn from Babylon, till the days of our Saviour, the Jews had no 
prophets after Malachi, Haggai, and Zechariah, who prophesied 
at that time, and Ezra ; except another Zachariah, father of 
John, and his wife Elizabeth, just before the birth of Christ; 
and after his birth, old Simeon and Anna, a widow of a great 
age ; and John last of all." Again,f " From Samuel the prophet 
to the Babylonish Captivity, and then to their return from it, 
and the rebuilding of the Temple after seventy years, according 
to the prophecy of Jeremiah, is the whole time of the Prophets. " 
To ascertain his idea of a prophet and of a prophetic composi- 
tion, let us turn to the thirty-eighth chapter of the eighteenth 
book of the same treatise.^ It is there stated as a probable 
explanation of the fact, that some books which were written by 
prophets were excluded from the canon, " that those to whom 
the Holy Spirit was accustomed to reveal what ought to be re- 
ceived as authoritative in religion, wrote some things as men of 
historic investigation, and others as Prophets, of Divine inspira- 
tion : the two were kept distinct that the former might be attri- 
buted to the men themselves, the latter to God, who spoke 
through the prophets." A prophet, then, is a person "to whom 

* Toto autem illo tempore, ex quo redierunt de Babylonia, post Malachiam, 
Aggorum et Zachariam, qui turn prophetarerunt et Esdram, non habuerunt 
prophetas usque ad Salvatoris adventum, nisi aliam Zachariam patrem Johan- 
nis, que Elisabet ejus uxorem, Christi nativitate jam proxima ; et eo jam nato, 
Simeonem senem, et Annam viduam jamque grandeevam et ipsam Johannem 
novissimum.— S. Augustini Episcopi de Civitate Dei, lib. xvii. cap. 24, 

t Hoc itaque tempus, ex quo sanctus Samuel prophetare ccepit, et dein- 
ceps donee populus Israel captivus in Babyloniam ducereter, atque inde se- 
cundum sancti Jeremiee prophetiam post septuaginta annos reversis Israelitis 
Dei domus instauraretur, totum tempus est Prophetarum. — Aug. de Civ. Dei, 
lib. xvii. c. 1. 

t Cujus rei, fateor causa me latet ; nisi quod estimo, etiam ipsos, quibus ea 
quae in auctoritate religionis esse debent, sanctus utique spiritus revelabat, alia 
sicut homines historica diligentia, alia sicut prophetas inspiratione divina scri- 
bere potuisse ; atque haec ita fuisse distincta, ut ilia tamquam ipsis, ista vero 
tamquam Deo per ipsos loquenti, judicarentur esse tribuenda ac sic ilia pertine- 
rent ad ubertatem cognitionis, haec ad religionis auctoritatem. — Aug. de Civ. 
Dei, lib. xviii. c. 38. 



296 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

the Holy Spirit is accustomed to reveal what ought to be re- 
ceived as authoritative iti religion " — he is a man who speaks 
by " Divine inspiration," and does not depend upon his diligence 
and industry for the truths which he communicates. He is not 
merely an individual who foretells the future, — he may write a 
history, but he must depend for his facts, not upon historical % 
research, but the instructions of the Spirit. In other words, 
Augustine plainly treats prophet and inspired man as terms of 
equivalent extension. When, therefore, he says, that from Ezra 
to Christ, no prophet appeared among the Jews, he unquestion- 
ably means that the gift of inspiration was withdrawn, and that, 
consequently, no works written during that period were entitled 
to be received as of authority in religion. Now it is notorious 
that a large portion, if not all, of the Apocrypha was written 
during this very period, in which, as it is piteously lamented in 
the Maccabees, " a prophet was not seen among them." There- 
fore, according to Augustine, a large portion of the Apocrypha 
is not inspired. 

In addition to this, there are several passages in his works, 
in which he evidently treats the Hebrew canon as complete. In 
his commentary on the fifty-sixth Psalm,* he observes, " that all 
the books in which Christ is the subject of prophecy, were in the 
possession of the Jews : we bring our documents from the Jews 
that we may put other enemies to confutation : the Jew car- 
ries the book from which the Christian derives his faith. The 
Jews are our librarians." Again, he says, in another disserta- 
tion :f " The Jews are the escritoirs of Christians, containing the 
law and the prophets, which prove the doctrines of the church." 
And in another place he expressly says that the Law, the Prophets, 
and the Psalms comprehended " all the canonical authorities 

* Propterea adhuc Judsei sunt, ut libros nostros portent ad confusionem 
suam. Quando enim volumus ostendere paganis prophet atum Christum, pro- 
ferimus paganis istas litteras. Quia omnes ipsae litterae, quibus Christus pro- 
phetatus est, Judaeos sunt, omnes ipsas literas habent Judaei, proferimus codi- 
ces ab inimicis, ut confundamus alios inimicos. Codicem portat Judaeus, unde 
credat Christianus librarii nostri facti sunt. — Aug. in Psa. lvi. 

t Et quid est aliud hodie que gens ipsa Judaeorum, nisi quaedam seriniaria 
Christianorum, bajulans legem et prophetas ad testimonium assertiones Eccle- 
iae. — Aug. lib. xii. contra Faust, cap. 13. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 297 

of the sacred books."* It is notorious however, that the Jews 
rejected the Apocrypha — that these were documents which they 
refused to carry, and if Augustine received as inspired no other 
works but those which were acknowledged by the Hebrew na- 
tion, it is demonstrably certain, that he could not have admitted 
any part of the Apocrypha into the sacred canon. We may come 
down, accordingly, to particular books, and show that some of 
them are, by him, expressly and unequivocally excluded. The 
book of Judith, he informs us, possessed no canonical authority 
among the Jews.f Of the Maccabees he says,| " The Jews do 
not receive the Scripture of the Maccabees, as they do the Law, 
the Prophets, and the Psalms, to which our Lord bears testimony. 
But it is received by the Church not unprofitably, if it be read 
and heard soberly, especially for the sake of the history of the 
Maccabees, who suffered so much from the hand of persecutors, 
for the sake of the Law of God." Whatever the reception was, 
which the church gave to these books, Augustine justifies it, not 
on account of their Divine authority, but chiefly or especially on 
account of the moral tendency of the history. It is plain that he 
could not have regarded them as inspired, since their inspiration 
would have been the strongest of all possible reasons for receiv- 
ing them. We defer to the instructions of an inspired composi- 
tion, not because its lessons are useful, but we know that its les- 
sons must be useful because it is inspired. Speaking, in another 
place, of these same books, he says,§ " The account of these 

* Demonstrant Ecclesiam suam in prescripto Legis, in Prophetarum pre- 
dicts, in Psalmorum Cantibus, hoc est, in omnibus canonicis sanctorum libro 
rum actoritatibus. — Aug. de Unit. Eccl. c. 15. 

t Per idem tempus etiam ilia sunt gesta, quae conscripta sunt in libro Ju- 
dith, quern sane in canone Scrip turarum Judaei non recepisse dicuntur. — Aug. 
de Civ. Dei. lib. xviii. c. 26. 

t Et hanc Scripturam, quae appellatur Macchabaeorum, non habent Judaei, 
sicut Legem et Prophetas et Psalmos, quibus Dominus testimonium perhibet ; 
sed recepta est ab ecclesia non inutiliter, si sobrie legatur et audiatur, maxime 
propter illos Macchabaeos, qui pro Dei lege, sicut veri martyres, a persecutori- 
bus tarn indigna atque horrenda perpessi sunt, &c. — Contr. Gaudent. Donat. 
l,i. cap. 31,n.38. T. ix. 

§ Quorum supputatio temporum non in scripturis Sanctis, quae canonicae ap- 
pellantur, sed in aliis invenitur, in quibus sunt et Macchabaeorum libri, quos non 
Judaei, sed Ecclesia pro canonicis habet, propter quorumdam Martyrum pas- 

14 



298 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

times is not found in those holy Scriptures which are called ca- 
nonical, but in other works, among which also are the books of 
the Maccabees which the Jews do not, but which the church 
does, esteem to be canonical, on account of the violent and ex- 
traordinary sufferings of certain Martyrs, who, previously to the 
advent of Christ in the flesh, contended even unto death for the 
Law of God, and endured grievous and horrible calamities." 
Here ao-ain these books are canonical among Christians, not be- 
cause they are inspired, but on account of the examples of he- 
roic martyrdom with which they are adorned. The language of 
this passage is remarkable. The Maccabees are first carefully 
distinguished from those Divine Scriptures which are called ca- 
nonical, and then it is immediately added that the church receives 
them as canonical. Here, then, is either a contradiction, (for 
it is preposterous to limit the first clause so as to make Augustine 
assert that these books did not belong to the Scriptures called 
canonical by the Jews — his words are absolute and general,) or 
the term canonical is used in two distinct and separate senses, in 
owe of which it might be universally affirmed that the Macca- 
bees were not canonical ; in the other, that they were canonical 
in the Christian, though not in the Jewish Church. I might 
also show, but I do not wish to protract the argument, that 
Augustine rejected Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom from the list of 
inspired compositions.* 

If, as we have seen, Augustine did not receive the Apocrypha 
as any part of the Word of God, what did he mean by canonical 
Scriptures in the catalogue to which we have already referred ? 
I answer, without hesitation, books which might be profitably 
read in the churches for the public instruction of the faithful. 

That some of the ancient churches had a canon of reading 
distinct from the canon of inspired writings, may be gathered 
from the testimony of Athanasius, Jerome, and Ruffinus. The 
passage from Athanasius is quoted in another part of this discus- 
sion. Jerome says,f " As, therefore, the church reads the books 
siones vehementes atque mirabiles, qui ante quam Christus venisset in carnem 
usque ad mortem pro Dei lege certaverunt, et mala gravissima atque horribilia 
pertulerunt. — Aug. de Civ. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 36. 

* See Cosin's Scholastical Hist. Canon under Augustine. 

t Sicut ergo Judith, et Tobiae, et Macchabgporum libros legit quidem Ec- 






APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 299 

of Judith, Tobias, and Maccabees, but does not receive them 
among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads these two volumes 
(Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus) for the edification of the people, 
but not for authority to prove the doctrines of religion." Ruf- 
fin says,* " It ought, however, to be known, that there are also 
other books which are not canonical, but have been called by 
our forefathers, ecclesiastical ; as the Wisdom of Solomon, and 
another which is called the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, and 
among the Latins is called by the general name of Ecclesiasti- 
cus : by which title is denoted, not the author of the book, but 
the quality of the writing. In the same rank is the book of 
Tobit and Judith, and the books of the Maccabees. In the New 
Testament is the book of the Shepherd, or of Hermas, which is 
called the Two Ways, or the Judgment of Peter. All which 
they would have to be read in the churches, but not to be al- 
leged by way of authority, for proving articles of faith." 

Now the preface to Augustine's catalogue shows conclusively 
that he was not answering the question, what books were inspired, 
but another question, what books might be read.f He first di- 

clesia, sed eos inter canonicas Scripturas non recipit, sic et haec duo volumina 
(Sapientiam et Ecclesiasticum) legit ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctorita- 
tem Ecclesiasticorum dogmatum confirm andam. — Hieron. Prcefat. in. Libros 
Salomonis. 

* Secundum tamen est, quod et alii libri sunt, qui non eanonici, sed Ec- 
clesiastici a majoribus appellati sunt, ut est sapientia Salomonis, et alia sapien- 
tia, quae dicitur filii Sirach. Ejusdem ordinis est libeilus Tobiae, et Judith, et 
Maccabaeorum libri. In Novo vero Testamento libeilus, qui dicitur Pastoris 
sine Hermatis, qui appellatur Duae Viae, vel judicium Petri ; quae omnia legi qui- 
dem in ecclesiis voluerunt, non tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his fidei con- 
firmandam. — Ruffin. in Symbolo ad Calcem Cypriani. Oxon. p. 26. 

t Erit igitur Divinarum Scripturarum solertissimus indagator, qui primo 
totas legerit, notasque habuerit, et si nondum intellectu, jam tamen lectione, 
dum laxat eas quae appellantur canonicae. Nam ceteras securius leget fide veri- 
tatis instructis, ne praeoccupent imbecillem animum, et periculosis mendaciis 
atque phantasmatis eludentes, praejudicent aliquid contra sanam intelligentiam. 
In canonicis autem Scripturis Ecclaesearum Catholicarum quam plurimum auc- 
toritatem sequatur, inter quas sane illae sint, quae Apostolicas sedes habere et 
Epistolas accipere meruerunt. Tenebit igitur hunc modum in Scripturis canon- 
icis, ut eas quae ab omnibus accipiuntur Ecclesiis Catholicis praeponat eis quas 
quaedam non accipiunt : in eis vero quae non accipiuntur ab omnibus praeponat 
eas quas plures gravioresque accipiunt, eis quas pauciores minorisque auctorita- 



300 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

vides the Divine Scriptures into two general classes : those which 
were, and those which were not canonical, and gives the general 
advice, that he who would make himself skilful in the Scriptures, 
should confine his reading to those which were canonical. Then 
he draws a distinction between the canonical books themselves, and 
shows that some, even of this class, were entitled to much more 
deference and respect than others. He directs his diligent in- 
quirer, " to prefer such as are received by all catholic churches, 
to those which some do not receive ;" and with regard to such as 
are not received by all, he advises him " to prefer those which 
are received by many and eminent churches, to those which are 
received by few churches, and of less authority.'' Now, Trent 
itself being witness, all inspired Scripture is entitled to equal 
veneration and respect. No matter if every church under heaven 
should agree to reject it, the obligation, supposing its inspira- 
ration to be known, would still be perfect to receive and obey 
it. Its authority does not depend upon the numbers who submit 
to it, but upon the proofs that it came from God. These proofs 
can neither be increased nor diminished by the multitude or pau- 
city of those who are convinced by them. If they should be con- 
fined to a single church, and that church should proclaim them 
to a faithless world, the world would be as strongly bound to 
listen and believe, as though a thousand sees had joined in the 
act. From the nature of the case, evidence perfectly conclusive 
of their Divine inspiration must, in regard to some of the Epis- 
tles, have existed, at first, only in a single congregation ; and 
even while other churches had not yet received them, their au- 
thority was just as perfect and complete as it afterwards became, 
when all Christendom confessed them to be Divine. It is conse- 
quently preposterous to measure the authority of inspired Scrip- 
ture by the number, dignity, and importance of the churches 
that acknowledge its claims. But if the question be, what books, 
in the estimation of those who are competent to judge, may be 
safely read for practical improvement, then the rule of Augustine 



tis Ecclesiae tenent. Si autem alias invenerit a pluribus, alias a gravioribus 
haberi, quamquam hoc facile invenire non possit, aequalis tamen auctoritatis 
habendas puto. — Aug. de Doctrina Christ, lib. ii. c. 8. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 301 

is just and natural. You must inquire into the experience of 
the Christian world, if you wish to ascertain the works which 
God has eminently blessed to the comfort, holiness, stability, 
and peace of his chosen children. It seems, as we gather from 
•Augustine's Preface, that there were works in circulation under 
the title of Divine Scriptures, abounding in falsehoods perilous 
to the soul, which could not, therefore, be read with safety or 
with profit. In contradistinction from these dangerous books, 
those which might be read with security and advantage, were 
pronounced to be canonical, and his whole purpose was to fur- 
nish a catalogue of safe religious works, in order to guard against 
the hazard and detriment to which the minds of the ignorant and 
unskilful would be otherwise exposed. By canonical, therefore, 
he means nothing more than useful or expedient as a rule of 
life. The word will evidently bear this meaning. It is a gen- 
eral term, and, in itself considered, expresses no more than what 
is fit to be a rule, without any reference to the authority which 
prescribes it, or the end to which it is directed. In its applica- 
tion to the inspired Scriptures, it conveys the idea of an authori- 
tative rule or standard of faith, simply because they can be a rule 
of no other kind. But there is nothing in the nature of the term 
itself, which prevents it from being used to signify a rule for the 
conduct of life, collected either from the experience of the good, 
the observation of the wise, or the reasoning of the learned. In 
this sense, an uninspired composition may be eminently canoni- 
cal — it may supply maxims ofprudence for the judicious regula- 
tion of life, which, though they are commended by no divine 
authority, are yet the dictates of truth and philosophy, and will 
be eagerly embraced by those who are anxious to walk circum- 
spectly, and not as fools. We do no violence, then, to the lan- 
guage of Augustine, when we assert that by canonical books, 
which he opposes to those that were dangerous and deceptive, 
he meant books which were calculated to edify by the useful 
rules which they furnished, without any reference to the sources, 
whether supernatural or human, from which they were derived. 

This interposition is strikingly confirmed by the grounds on 
which, as we have already seen, Augustine admitted the Maccabees 
to be canonical. It also reconciles the apparent contradiction, when 



302 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

in the same sentence he declares them to be and not to be ca- 
nonical. They are not canonical in the same sense in which 
the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms were canonical, but they 
were canonical in a subordinate sense, as stimulating piety by 
praise-worthy examples. 

Having ascertained the opinions of Augustine, we are now 
prepared to inquire into the meaning of the Council of Carthage. 
It seems from the testimony of Ruffinus, that the African Churches 
were accustomed to read other books for the public instruction 
of the faithful, such for instance, as the Shepherd of Hermas, 
beside those which were held to be inspired. As many works 
were published under fallacious and deceitful titles, and were 
current under the name of Divine Scriptures, it was thought 
proper, in order to guard the Churches against every composi- 
tion of this kind, to draw up a list containing all the works which 
might be safely and profitably read. To furnish a catalogue of 
this sort was, I apprehend, the sole design of the forty seventh can- 
on. And for the purpose of securing uniformity in the public 
worship of God, it was wise and judicious to consult the church- 
es beyond the sea. This interpretation, which the language will 
obviously bear, saves the council from the folly, wickedness and 
disgrace of pronouncing the third book of Ezra to be inspired, 
and of contradicting the testimony of all the past ages of the 
Church on the subject of the sacred canon. That this was the 
meaning, is distinctly intimated in the very phraseology of the 
Council itself. " It is ordained that nothing but the canonical 
Scriptures be read in the church, under the name of Divine Scrip- 
tures.^ It is not said, nothing shall be received as inspired by 
the faithful, but nothing shall be read. Then in the close of the 
canon, as if to put the matter beyond the possibility of doubt, it is 
added: "For the confirmation of this canon, our brother and 
fellow priest Boniface, or the other bishops of those parts, will 
take notice that we have received from our fathers these books to 
be read in the churches. The sufferings of the martyrs may also 
be read when their anniversaries are celebrated."* This paragraph 

* Item placuit, ut praeter Scripturas canonicas, nihil in Ecclesia legatur sub 
nomine divinarum Scripturarum, sunt autem canonicae Scripturas, Genesis, Ex- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 303 

explains the decree. We see from Athanasius, Jerome, and Ruf- 
finus what they received from the fathers : and they expressly 
incorporate uninspired legends, the sufferings of the martyrs, 
among the books that may be read, showing that their object was 
to regulate the public reading of the church, and not to deter- 
mine the canon of inspiration. 

This, accordingly, is the interpretation which distinguished 
Romanists have themselves put upon the language of the Council. 
Cardinal Cajetan, at the close of his commentary on the historical 
books of the Old Testament, observes :* " And here we close our 
commentaries of the historical books of the Old Testament. For the 
others (Judith Tobit and Maccabees) are not reckoned by St. Je- 
rome among the canonical books, but are placed among the Apoc- 
ryphal, together with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from 
the Prologus Galeatus. Let not the novice be disturbed if, in other 

odus, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium, Jesus Nave, Judicum, Ruth, Regno- 
rum libri quatuor, Paralipomenon libri duo, Job, Psalterium Davidicum, Salo- 
monis libri quinque, libri duodecim Prophetarum, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, 
Daniel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Esdrae libri duo, Macchabaeorum libri duo. Novi 
autem Testamenti, Evangelicorum libri quatuor, Actuum Apostolorum liber unus, 
Pauli Apostoli Epistolse tredecim, ejusdem ad Haebreos una, Petri Apostoli duae, 
Johannis Apostoli tres, Judse Apostoli una, et Jacobi una, Apocalypsis Joannis 
liber unus. 

Hoc etiam fratri et consacerdoti nostro Bonifacio, vel aliis earum partium 
Episcopis pro confirmando isto canone, innotescat, quia a patribus ista accipi- 
mus in Ecclesia legenda. Liceat etiam legi passiones martyrum, cum anniver- 
sarii dies eorum celebrantur. — Coun. Carth. iii. c. 47. 

* Et hoc in loco terminamus commentaria Librorum Historialium V. T. 
Nam reliqui (viz., Judith, Tobia, et Maccab. libri,) a S. Hieronymo extra ca- 
nonicos libros supputantur, et inter Apocrypha locantur, cum libro Sapientiae, 
Ecclesiastico, ut patet in prologo Galeato. Nee turberis, Novitie, si alicubi re- 
pereris libros istos inter canonicos supputari, vel in sacris conciliis, vel in sacris 
Doctoribus. Nam ad Hieronymi limam reducenda sunt tam verba conciliorum, 
quam Doctorum ; et juxta illius sententiam ad Chrom. et Heliod. Episcopos, 
libri isti (et si qui alii sunt in canone Bibliae similes) non sunt canonici, hoc 
est, non sunt Regulares ad firmandum ea quae sunt Fidei ; possunt tamen dici 
canonici, hoc est, Regulares ad aedificationem fidelium, utpote in canone Bibliae 
ad hoc recepti et authorati. Cum hoc enim distinctione discernere poteris et 
dicta Augustini in 2 de Doctr. Christiana, que scripta in Cone. Flor. sub Eug. 
4, scripta que in provincialibus Conciliis Carthag. et Laodic. et ab Innocentio, 
ac Gelasio Pontificibus. — Cajetan in lib. Esther, sub finem. 



304 



ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 



places, he should find that these books were counted among the 
canonical, either by holy councils or holy doctors. For to the 
rule of Jerome, the words as well of councils as of doctors must 
be reduced. And according to his opinion, these books and all 
similar ones in the canon of the Bible, are not canonical, that is, 
are not regular (or to be used as a rule) for confirming articles 
of faith : though they may be called canonical, that is, regular 
(or may be used as a rule) for the edification of the faithful, and 
are received and authorized in the canon of the Bible only for 
this end ;" and with this distinction, he informs us, we are to 
understand St. Austin and the Council of Carthage. So that, 
upon the showing of one of the Trent doctors— a man who was 
reputed to be the very prince of Theologians— the Council of Car- 
thage makes nothing in your favor. It was not treating of the 
canon of inspiration, but of the canon for public reading.* 

III. Passing over your citations from Pope Siricius and 
Julius Firmicus Maternus as presenting nothing worthy of a 
reply, I shall make a few remarks upon Ephrem the Syrian,^ 
Prophet of the whole world and the Lyre of the Holy Ghost. 
That he has quoted the Apocrypha, admits of no question— that 
he believed them to be inspired, is quite a different matter, and 
one, in reference to which you have produced not a particle of 
proof. There are two facts, however, which you have thought 
proper to pass without notice, that create a very strong presump- 
tion, if they do not amount to a positive proof, against the 
position which you have undertaken to sustain. 1. Ephrem 
repeatedly asserts that Malachi was the last of the prophets.f 
Therefore no books written subsequently to his time, could have 
been inspired; and therefore nearly the whole of the Apocrypha 
must be excluded from the canon. 

* See Bingham's Origines Ecclesiast. lib. xiv. c. 3, § 16. 

t Judseorum sacrificia prophetes declarant immunda fuisse. Quae ergo 
Esaias hoc loco hominum canumve cadaveribus aequiparat, Malachias, Prophe- 
tarum ultimus, animalium retrimenta vocat, non offerenda Deo, sed offerentium 
in ora cum approbation rejicienda. (Malach. ii. 3.)— Comment, in Es. lxvi. 3, 
T. ii. Syr. p. 94. C. D. Malachias, omnium Prophetarum postremus, populo 
commendat legem, et legis coronidem Joannem, quern Eliam cognominat.— 
Comm. in Malach. iv. 4, ib. p. 315, c. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 305 

2. Ephrem, though he commented upon all of the canonical, 
wrote no commentary upon any of the Apocryphal books.* 
Why does he omit Baruch, in commenting upon Jeremiah ; and 
why omit the Song of the Three Children, the story of Susan- 
nah, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, if he believed that 
these works were parts respectively of Jeremiah and Daniel, 
and entitled to equal authority with the rest of the books % 
Asseman informs usf that the corrupt additions to Daniel were 
not contained in the vulgar Syriac Bible, though they were 
subsequently added from Greek copies, and your own citations 
abundantly prove that they were known to Ephrem. He must, 
therefore, have passed them over by design. His references 
to them show that he held them to be historically true, and 
practically useful. Why, then, sever them, in his commentaries, 
from the books to which they were generally attached, and of 

* Hebedjesu Chaldaeus, e Nestorianorum secta Episcopus Solensis, in cata- 
logo Scriptorum Syrorum, num. 51. Ephraemi opera enumerat, his verbis: 
Ephraem magnus, qui Syrorum Propheta cognominatus est, edidit commentaria 
in libros Genesis, Exodi, Saeerdotum, (Levitici,) Josui filii Nun, Judicum, Sam- 
uelis, (primum et secundum Regum), in Lib rum Regum (tertium et quartum), 
Davidis, (Psalmorum), Isaiae, Duodecim, (minorium Prophetarum, Jeremiae, 
Ezechielis,etBeati Danielis. Habet etiam Libros, et Epistolas de Fidei, et Ec- 
clesia. Edidit quoque Orationes Metricas, Hymnos, et Cantica : Cantusque 
omnes Defunctorum : et Lucubrationes ordine Alphabetico : et Disputationem 
adversus Judseos : nee non adversus Simonem, et Bardesanem, et contra Mar- 
cionem, atque Aphitas : demum solutionem impietatis Juliani. Ubi Hebedjesu 
ea dumtaxat Ephraemi opera recenset, quae ipse legit, vel ad manus habuit. 
Nam Ephraemum alia plura edidisse, quam quae hie numerantur, certum est ex 
auctoribus supra relatis, et ex codice nostro Syriaco iii. in quo habentur commen- 
taria ejusdam in numeros, in Deuteronomium. — Assent. Biblio. Orien. vol. i. 
p. 58. 

t Quae D. Hieronymus ex Theodotione transtulit Danielis capita, nimirum 
Canticum trium puerorum, cap. 3, a vers. 24, ad vers. 91, Historian! Susannae, 
Bel idol, et Draconis, atque Danielis in locum leonum missi, cap. 14, ea et Eph- 
raem Hebrsecum Textum sequutus, inhisce commentariis tacitus praeteriit. Haec 
enim in vulgata Syrorum versione haud extabant ; licet postea ex Graecis exem- 
plaribus in sermone Syriacum a recentioribus Interpretations conversa fuerint. 
— Assem. Biblio. Orien. vol. i. pp. 72. 

And yet Gregory Nyssen, as cited by Asseman, torn. i. pp. 56, says that 
Ephrem commented upon the whole Bible ! Could these additions to Daniel, 
then, have been a part of it ? 

14* 



306 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

which they were supposed to be a part ? I know of but one 
answer that can be given, and that is, that he followed the He- 
brew canon. 

IV. Your appeal is just as unfortunate to the great Basil, 
Bishop of Caesarea. Several of you citations are taken from 
that portion of the Treatise against Cunomius which is not uni- 
versally admitted to be genuine. The last two books have been 
called into question. Still, upon the principles which have 
been repeatedly explained, the strongest quotations which you 
have been able to extract from the writings of this father, do 
not establish the divine authority of those books of the Apocry- 
pha which he chose to accommodate. We have, however, 
positive evidence that he admitted as inspired only the books 
which were acknowledged by the Jews. In the Philocalia, or 
hard places of Scripture, collected by him and Gregory Na- 
zianzen, out of Origen's works, he proposes the question,* 
" Why were only twenty-two books divinely inspired V He 
then goes on to tell us that, " as twenty-two letters (the number 
of the Hebrew alphabet) form the introduction to Wisdom, so 
twenty-two books of Scripture are the basis and introduction of 
Divine wisdom and the knowledge of things." 

Again, in the second book against Cunomius, having quoted 
the passage in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, " The Lord pos- 
sessed me in the beginning of his days," Basil observes t that, 
" It is but once found in all the Bible," as Eusebius had done 
before. And yet, if Ecclesiasticus is a part of the Bible, the 
statement is false, for substantially the very same thing is de- 
clared in the ninth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of Eccle- 
siasticus. In fact, Bellarmin has represented Basil J as quoting 
it in the fifth book against Eunomius, from Ecclesiasticus, and 

** Quare 22 Libri Divinitius inspirati ? Respondeo, quoniam in numerorum 
loco, &c. Neque enim ignorandum est quod V. T. libri (ut Hebrsei tradunt) 
viginti et duo, quibus sequalis est numerus Elementorum Hebraeorum, non abs 
re sint ut enim 22 Literae introductio ad sapientiam, etc., ita ad sapientiam Dei, 
et rerum notitiam fundamentum sunt et Introductio Libri Scripturae duo et vi- 
ginti. — Philoc. c. 3, as quoted by Cosin. 

t A7ra| ev navais raig ypatyaiq eiprjrai' J^voiog cktlcts pe. S Bas. Adv. JBunom. 

X Bellar. de Ver. Dei. lib. i. c. 14. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 307 

because the Father there attributes it to Solomon, the Jesuit 
has inferred that he ascribed the Wisdom of Sirach to the 
Monarch of Israel. It is plain, however, that Basil had reference 
to Proverbs, and Proverbs only. 

V. Your next witness is Chrysostom, who, you have suc- 
ceeded in proving, held the Apocrypha to be Scripture, and, if 
you please, Divine Scripture ; but you have nowhere shown that 
he believed them to be inspired. On the contrary, he himself 
affirms in his homilies on Genesis, * that " all the inspired books 
of the Old Testament were originally written in the Hebrew 
tongue" How many of those in dispute were written in this 
language 1 Again, in another place, f he acknowledges no other 
books but those which Ezra was said to have collected, and 
which were subsequently translated by the seventy-two Elders, 
acknowledged by Christ, and spread by his apostles. But, 
according to your own account of the matter, Ezra collected 
only the books which the Jews received. Therefore Chrysos- 
tom admitted none but the Hebrew canon. If he sometimes 
quoted Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, or any other books of the 
Apocrypha, as the word of God, it is evidently in the same loose 
way, and on the same principle on which these works were 
ascribed to Solomon or others of the ancient prophets. Their 
sentiments were approved, and their doctrine supposed to be 
consistent with Scripture. 

VI. In regard to Ambrose, bishop of Milan, all that I shall 
say is, that the same process of argument by which you would 
make him canonize the books that Rome acknowledges, will 
also make him canonize a book which Rome rejects, which, ac- 
cording to Sixtus of Sienna, no father had ever received, and 
which, according to Bellarmin, is disfigured with idle fables — 
the dreams of Rabbins and Talmudists. 



* Uaaai ai dsiai 0l@\oi rrjs TraXouas AiadrjKris rrj E/fyoueoi/ y\o)rrr) e£ ap^Vi caav 
a-vi'Tedeifxevaij kcli tovto nav-eg av rjuiv cvvo^.o\oyr]aai£v . Chrys. in Genes. Horn. 4. 

T Erspa) xaXiv avSpt davj-iaarco evsTrvsvcsv, cjare avras EKQsadcu, rco ILaSpa Xeyto^ 
Kdi oltto Xeupavwv avvredrjvai eixoirjye. Mera Se tovto oiKOvo^rjcrev epfxrjvevOrjvai avras 
wrro roiv e(36onr}Kovra' rjpixrjvevnau exeivoi. Tlapeysvero o XptGTOfj Several avrag, 01 cnro- 
otoXoi £ig -rravTas avrag Siacnrstpovari^ a-qjxeia eiroiTjae kcli davfiara o XpurTOS. Chrys. in 
Hebr. Horn. 8. 



308 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

His language is just as strong, pointed, and precise, in refer- 
ence to the fourth book of Esdras, as it is in reference to Tobit, 
Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, or Judith. In his book de Bono Mor- 
tis, having quoted the thirty-second verse of the seventh chapter 
of the fourth book of Esdras, Ambrose adds in the next chapter ;* 
" We do not fear that end due to all, in which Esdras finds the 
reward of his devotion — God saying to him, &c," and again, 
" Esdras revealed according to the revelation imparted to him," 
and still again, " Who was the elder, Esdras or Plato 1 For 
Paul followed the sayings of Esdras and not of Plato." Now if 
Ambrose could treat Esdras as a prophet, who received a reve- 
lation to be communicated to others, and yet not really believe 
him to be inspired — if his language, in this case, must be under- 
stood in a subordinate and modified sense, why not understand 
him in the same way when he applies a similar phraseology to 
the other books of the Apocrypha? Ambrose, if strictly inter- 
preted, proves too much even for the Jesuits. They are obliged 
to soften his expressions, and in doing so, they completely 
destroy the argument by which they would make him canonize 
the books which Trent has inserted in the Sacred Library. As 
to his quoting Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus under the name of 
Solomon, that proves nothing, since he has distinctly informed 
us f that Solomon was the author of only three books, Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes and Canticles. 

VII. It is unnecessary to dwell upon your citations from 
Paulinus of Nola, as they involve only the same argument which 
has been so frequently refuted, and the testimony of Augustine, 
your last witness, has been abundantly considered already. 

* Non vereamur ilium debitum omnibus finem, in quo Esdras remunera- 
tionem suae devotionis invenit, dicente ei Domino. Quis utique prior, Esdras, 
an Plato] namPaulus Esdrae,non Platonis sequutus est dicta. Esdrae revela- 
vit secundum collatam in se revelationem, justos futuros cum Christo, futures et 
cum Sanctis. 

t Unde et Salomonis tres libri ex plurimis videntur electi : Ecclesiastes de 
naturalibus, Cantica Canticorum de mysticis, Proverbia de moralibus. In Ps. 
xxxvi. pr. t. i. p. 777. Quid etiam tres libri Salcmonis, unus de Proverbiis 
alius Ecclesiastes, tertius de Canticis Canticorum, nisi trinae hujus ostendunt 
nobis Sapientiae sanctum Salomonem fuisse solertem 1 — In Lucam, pr. t. i. p. 
1262, A. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 309 

It now remains to sum up the result of this whole investiga- 
tion. You undertook to prove that Rome was not guilty of arro- 
gance and blasphemy in adding to the word of God — in other 
words, you undertook to prove that the Apocrypha toere inspired. 
For this purpose you brought forward four arguments, which I 
shall collect in the syllogistic form. 

1. The first was, Whatsoever Rome, being infallible, de- 
clares to be inspired, must be inspired. 

Rome declares that the Apocrypha are so. 

Therefore, the Apocrypha must be inspired. 

In a series of Essays I completely and triumphantly refuted 
the major, so that this argument, which was the key-stone of the 
arch, fell to the ground. 

2. Your second was, Whatsoever books Christ and his apos- 
tles quoted, must be inspired. 

Christ and his apostles quoted the Apocrypha. 
Therefore the Apocrypha must be inspired. 
Both premises of this syllogism were proved to be false, so 
that it is not only dead, but twice dead, plucked up by the roots. 

3. Your third was, Whatever books were incorporated in 
the ancient versions of the Bible, must be inspired. 

The Apocrypha were so incorporated. 
Therefore the Apocrypha must be inspired. 
The major was shown to be without foundation, and contra- 
dicted by notorious facts. 

4. Your fourth and last was, Whatever the Fathers have 
quoted as Scripture, Divine Scripture, &x., must be inspired. 

They have so quoted the Apocrypha. 

Therefore the Apocrypha must be inspired. 

Here again the major- was shown to be false, as these were 
only general expressions for religious literature, whether inspired 
or human. The result, then, of the whole matter is, that in 
three instances your conclusion is drawn from a single premiss, 
and in one case from no premises at all. Upon this foundation 
stand the claims of the Apocryphal books to a place in the canon. 



310 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 



LETTER XIX. 

The real Testimony of the Primitive Church. — The Canons of Melito, Origen, Athanasius, 
Hilary, Cyril. Gregory Naz., Jerome, Ruffinus, Council of Laodicea. 

Having now shown that Rome has utterly failed in producing 
a particle of proof in favor of her adulterated canon, I proceed 
to vindicate my original assertion, that, for four centuries, the 
unbroken testimony of the Christian church is against the inspi- 
ration of the Apocryphal books. During all that period there is 
not only no intimation of what you have asserted to be true, that 
Christ and his apostles delivered them to the faithful as a part of 
the divine Rule of Faith, but there is a large amount of clear, 
positive, and satisfactory evidence that no such event could possi- 
bly have taken place. 

The testimony of the primitive church presents itself to us 
under two aspects : It is either negative, consisting in the ex- 
clusion of the disputed books from professed catalogues of Scrip- 
ture ; or positive, consisting in explicit declarations on the part 
of distinguished Fathers, that they were not regarded as inspired. 
These two classes of proof I shall treat promiscuously, and ad- 
duce them both in the order of time. 

I. Little more than half a century after the death of the last 
of the apostles, nourished Melito, bishop of Sardis, one of the 
seven churches to which John, in the Apocalypse, was directed 
to write. Such was the distinguished reputation which this 
good man enjoyed, that Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, says of 
him that he was guided in all things by the Holy Ghost; and 
Tertullian not only praises " his elegant and oratorical genius," 
but adds that " he was esteemed by many as a prophet." The 
recorded opinions of such a man, living near enough to the 
times of the apostles to have conversed with those who had lis- 
tened to the divine instructions of John, though not to be re- 
ceived as authority, are certainly evidence of a very high charac- 
ter. It so happens, in the providence of God, that we have a cat- 
alogue of the sacred books drawn up by him for his friend One- 
simus, which he professes to have made with the utmost accuracy, 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 311 

after a full investigation of the subject. I shall suffer him to 
speak for himself. " Melito sends greeting to his brother Onesi- 
mus. Since in thy zeal for the word, thou hast often desired to 
have selections from the Law and the Prophets concerning the 
Saviour and the whole of our faith, and hast also wished to ob- 
tain an exact statement of the ancient books, how many they 
were in number, and what was their arrangement, I took pains to 
effect this, understanding thy zeal for the faith, and thy desire 
of knowledge in respect to the word, and that, in thy devotion 
to God, thou esteemest these things above all others, striving 
after eternal salvation. Therefore, having come to the East and 
arrived at the place where these things were preached and done, 
and having accurately learned the books of the Old Testament, I 
have subjoined a list of them and sent it to thee. The names 
are as follows : of Moses, five books : namely, Genesis, Exodus, 
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy : Joshua, son of Nun, 
Judges, Ruth : four books of kings, two of Chronicles, the 
Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, which is also called 
Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Job: of Prophets, 
the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, writings of the twelve pro- 
phets in one book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra, from which I have 
made selections, distributing them into six books."* 

This testimony, you inform us,f " corroborates the fact," 



* MeXtrcoj/ Qvrjaifxo) ro> af)£X(pM y^aipeiv' ETTEiSr] TroXXaKig e^ioiaag GirovSr] tt) irpog tov 
Xoyov xpoinevos yeveudat goi £KXoyag f ek t£ tov vopov kcli tcov 7rpo<pr)Ttov nepi tov Gwrripos 
km 7rao7]s rr)s -mo-TSbii rifxo)v. etl Se kcli p.a$£iv ttjv to)v iraXaioiv /3i/3Xiwv £/3ovXrjQr}S axpt- 
fieiav. ixoca tov apiQ^ov feat oicoia ti\v Ta^iv elev^ Eo-rrovSaaa to toiclvto irpa^ai^ ETnGTaaE- 

V0$ GOV TO GTTOvSaiOV TTEpi TTjV TTIGTIV, KCLI ^iXofiadEq TTEpi TOV XoyOV • 0TL TE uaXlGTO. 
TTCLVTbiV TTodcy Tip TTpOS BeOV TOlVTOL TTpOKpiVElS, TTEpi T7}$ CLLUiVlOV G(x)TY]pia$ CiyOOVl^OfJLSVOS' 

avsXdoJv ovv els tx\v EvaToXrjv, Ktti £0)$ tov tottov yEvofxEvog' Evda EK^pv^Orj kcli £TTpayBr) i 
kcli tiKpiftox; padaw to. rrj? iraXaiag SiaBriKris PifiXia vrroTaj-as EKE/jixpa vol' ojv egti tcl ovop.a- 

TO.' M.0iVG£COg TTEVTE ' YeVEGIS, E|o<5fl£, A.EVITLKOV, A.pi9fX0Vj AsVTEpOVOLllOV ' lr]GOV$ 

Navri, KjOirat, Poufl' BugiXeicov TEGGapa, napa\£nrof.t.£va)v ovo. ^aXjiOiv Aa/?t J, T10X0- 
fxcoYog Jlapoipiai, r\ kcli Ylotyia, E/ocXr/cnaoT}??, Acr^a Acr^arcoy, Ico/?* UpocbrjTOJv, Haatov, 
IspEfxiov' TOiv ScoSeko. ev p.ovo0 't/?Ar.>, AavirjX, Ie^ekitjX, Ecrjpas', e£ ojv kcli £KXoyu)S ettoit]- 
Gajxrjv, sis £K,8i(3\ia SieXuv. Melito's Letter to Onesimus, Euseb. B. iv. c. 26. 

t " His testimony corroborates the fact, otherwise clearly proven, that at 
his day the practice of the Christian world was at variance with the opinion 
which he advanced." — A. P. F., Lett. xiii. 



312 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

that in the age of Melito, " the practice of the Christian world 
was at variance with the opinion which he advanced. " In other 
words, I understand you to assert, that the Epistle itself furnishes 
satisfactory proof, that at the period in which it was written, a 
different canon of the Old Testament was generally received 
from that which is presented in it. But, sir, in what part of the 
letter can this corroborating evidence be found 1 Melito evidently 
writes with the confidence of a man who knew that he was pos- 
sessed of the truth. He professes to give an exact statement of 
the names, number, and arrangement of the sacred books, and no- 
where does he drop the most distant hint that opposing senti- 
ments were held upon the subject, or that any other works had 
ever been commended by any portion of Christendom as entitled 
to equal veneration with those which he had enumerated. How 
then does " his testimony corroborate the fact, that at his day the 
practice of the Christian world was different from the opinion 
which he advanced ?" Will the reader believe it ?* Because he 
investigated the subject and formed his conclusion from person- 
al examination, it is confidently inferred that the whole matter 
must previously have been involved in uncertainty or doubt. 
Sir, you have forgotten your chronology. That was an age of 
private judgment : the Son of Perdition had not then enslaved the 
understandings of men. Priestly authority was not received as 
a substitute for light, and the mere dicta of ghostly confessors 
were not regarded as the oracles of God. The easy art of be- 
lieving by proxy, which must always result in personal damna- 
tion, was then wholly unknown. Tremblingly alive to the im- 
portance of truth, and deeply impressed with the dangers of de- 
lusion, the faithful of that day felt the responsibility that rested 
upon them to " try the spirits, to prove all things, and hold fast 
that which was good." Hence Melito determined to be guided 

* " Melito, according to his own statement, came to the conclusion set forth 
in his letter, after he had travelled into Palestine, and had there investigated the 
question. From this we are forced to infer, that he had not been taught in his 
youth at Sardis, and that it had not been made known to him, even in his ma- 
turer years, while he was a priest, and perhaps the Bishop of that church. It 
was precisely by his inquiries in Judea that he was led to the opinion which 
he finally adopted." — A, P. i 7 ., Lett. xiii. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 313 

only by evidence ; and, acting in obedience to the apostolic in- 
junction, wisely resolved to investigate the subject, and to form 
his opinions upon accurate research. He accordingly visits the 
country whence the Gospel had sprung, traverses the region 
where Jesus had labored, converses with the churches in which 
apostles had taught, and ascertained the books on which they 
were relying for the words of life. 

As you are perfectly confident, however, that the testimony of 
Melito, commended as it is by his diligence and care, must be 
worthless because it is unfavorable to the interests of Rome, you 
invent three hypotheses,* by means of one of which you hope 
to obviate its natural result. It was either his object, according 
to you, to publish the canon of the churches in Palestine, or to 
give that of the Jewish Synagogue, or to express his own private 
opinion that Christians should receive no other books of the Old 
Testament but those which were acknowledged by the Jews. If 
mere conjecture is to settle the matter, it is just as easy to make 
a fourth supposition ; that his real design was to compare the 
faith of Asia and Palestine, and to give the canon of the Chris- 
tian world, so far as he was able to ascertain what it was. Let us, 
however, test the value of your three evasions. 

1. If it were the object of Melito to state the books which 
the churches of Palestine believed to be inspired, we may re- 
gard it as settled that they received none but those which are 
contained in his list. Then, of course, they rejected the Apoc- 
rypha. Now these churches were planted by the hands of the 
Apostles, they were the first fruits of the Christian ministry, and 
here, if any where, we should expect to find an accurate know- 
ledge of the books which the Apostles had prescribed as the rule 
of faith. Strange, very strange, if within sixty years after the 
last of the sacred college had fallen asleep, so little regard was 
paid to their instructions in the scene of their earliest labors, 
that six entire works, together with divers fragments of others, 

* " If on the other hand, Melito, disregarding the practice of the church, 
even in Palestine^ and, seduced by peculiar views on the authority and sanctions 
of the Jewish canon, as opposed to the usage of the church, intended in his letter 
to give us the Books contained in the Jewish canon, manifestly his testimony 
does not touch the point before us at all." — A. P. F., Lett. xiii. 



314 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

had been ruthlessly torn from the inspired volume, as delivered 
to these churches by their venerable founders ! To say, as you 
have done, * that the Apostles, in tenderness to their early pre- 
judices, permitted the Hebrew Christians to retain the canon of 
the Jewish church, to the exclusion of the Apocrypha, is to con- 
tradict what you have elsewhere said, that the Jews themselves 
entertained a profound respect for the disputed books, and would 
have admitted them into their sacred library, if they had had the 
authority of a prophet. These Jewish prejudices, consequently, 
are a desperate expedient, invented solely for the purpose of re- 
conciling the notorious faith of the churches in Judea, with 
what Rome chooses to represent as Apostolic teaching. You 
tell us in one breath that the Apostles delivered the Apocrypha 
to the primitive Christians as inspired, and then in the very next, 
declare that they did not deliver them to the churches in Judea, 
because the stiff-necked children of Abraham would not receive 
them. But when the question was, Did the Jewish Church re- 
ject the Apocrypha, from the sacred canon, we were then in- 
formed that this was not the case — that it was a great admirer of 
the contested books, and would cheerfully have received them, 
if it had been commissioned by a proper tribunal. It is cer- 
tainly not a little singular that the Jews should be so warmly at- 
tatched to the books as to be willing to canonize them upon suf- 
ficient authority, and yet so violently prejudiced against them, 
that the whole College of Apostles could not subdue their oppo- 
sition. I have no knack at explaining riddles, and must there- 
fore leave these high mysteries to those who can swallow tran- 
substantiation. In the meantime I may be permitted to remark 
that the Apostles were not in the habit of surrendering truth to 
prejudice ; and if the churches of Palestine knew nothing of 
their having endorsed the Apocrypha as inspired, the presump- 
tion is irresistible, that no such thing ever took place. What 

* " The fact that a small portion of the universal church, converts from Ju- 
daism, should cling to the observances of those ancestors whom they revered, 
and whom every hill and dale recalled to their minds, does not condemn other 
churches which, untrammelled by any such restrictions, unswayed by any such 
motives, walked boldly under the guidance of the Apostles." — A. P. F., Lett. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 315 

they preached to the Gentiles, they preached first to the Jews ; 
and as to all the world they had proclaimed one Lord and one 
baptism, so they had likewise proclaimed only one faith. 

2. Your second hypothesis, that Melito intended to state the 
canon of the Jewish synagogue, and not of the Christian church- 
es, is contradicted by his own words. How could the zeal ©f 
Onesimus in the faith be an inducement to give him only a part 
of its standard ; and how would he be assisted in acquiring 
knowledge, by being led into serious error ? Onesimus desired 
an exact statement of the Books of the Old Testament. But ac- 
cording to you, Melito furnishes him only with those books which 
the Jews received, and consequently omitted an important por- 
tion of the whole Old Testament. Yet Melito himself says that 
he had fully complied with the request of his friend. So that 
either your supposition must be false, or the good Bishop, who, 
Polycrates says, was guided in all things by the Holy Ghost, was 
guilty of a falsehood. 

3. Your third hypothesis, that he only intended to express his 
private opinion in opposition to the prevailing practice of the 
church, as to the books which ought to be received, hardly de- 
serves a serious notice. That a man should travel from Sardis 
to Jerusalem, to ascertain the documents which the Apostolic 
churches held to be inspired ; then give the result of his inqui- 
ries with the strongest expression of confidence, when his con 
elusions were notoriously at variance with the faith of the chur- 
ches on which he had relied — in other words, that he should en- 
tertain so much respect for the opinion of the Hebrew and East- 
ern churches, as to make a long journey for the purpose of con- 
sulting them, and after all pay no attention to their opinions at 
all, is a proposition too monstrous to be deliberately maintained. 
I do not deny that Melito has given us his private opinion, but I 
do deny that he has given an opinion peculiar to himself. His 
own statement is certainly worthy of credit — his object was to 
give, (and he professes to have done it,) an exact account of the 
names, number, and arrangement of the books of the Old Testa- 
ment. He fabricated no new canon for himself, but recorded 
the books, and all the books, which the churches of the East 
believed to be inspired. From Jerusalem to Sardis, consequent- 



316 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

ly, in all the churches planted by Apostles, there was but one 
voice, about the middle of the second century, as to the docu- 
ments which compose the Old Testament; and that voice which 
may almost be regarded as a distant echo of the preaching of 
the twelve, condemns the canon of Trent. 

As to the objection that Melito has omitted the Book of Es- 
ther, I reply in the words of Eichhorn :* " It is true," says he, 
" that in this catalogue Nehemiah and Esther are not mentioned ; 
but whoever reads the passage and understands it, will here dis- 
cover both of them. Melito here arranges the books of the Old 
Testament manifestly according to the time in which they were 
written, or in which the facts which they record, occurred. 
Hence he places Ruth after the book of Judges, Daniel and 
Ezekiel towards the end of his catalogue, and Ezra last of all, 
because he wrote after the Babylonian captivity ; and accordingly 
as he comprehended the Books of Samuel and Kings under the 
general appellation Books of Kings, because they related to the 
history of the Hebrew kingdom from Saul to Zedekiah, or until 
the Babylonian captivity, in the same manner he appears to com- 
prise under the name of Ezra all historical books, the subjects of 
which occur in the times subsequent to the Babylonian captivity. 
As it is very common to include Ezra and Nehemiah in one 
book, why might not even Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, also have 
been regarded as a whole? If we add to this conjecture, that 
Nehemiah and Esther, according to Josephus, must have been 
parts of the canon, and that Fathers of authority, such as Origen 
and Jerome, expressly enumerate both in it, no impartial inqui- 
rer can well doubt that even Melito does not reject from the 
canon of the Old Testament the two books mentioned.'' 

To this it may be added that, according to any of your three 
hypotheses which have just been considered, Esther must have 
been included. If Melito intended to state the canon of the 
Hebrew Christians, and that, as you have said, coincided with the 
canon of the Jewish church, this book was confessedly a part. 
It was also acknowledged by the Jewish Synagogue, and anypri- 

* Vide Eich. Einleit. xli. 

t Vide Cosin, Scholast. Hist. Can. pp. 33. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 317 

vate opinions in opposition to the practice of the Christian 
church, which Melito might have been induced to form from his 
intercourse with the Jews, could not have led him to reject its 
authority. Your conjecture that he forgot to mention it, is, 
when we consider his pretensions to accuracy, wholly incredible. 
As therefore it must have been included, the account which 
Eichhorn has given of the matter is probably the true explanation. 
In this opinion he is sustained by Cosin, a man as learned as 
himself. 

II. The next writer to whom I shall appeal, and you have pro- 
nounced his eulogy, is Origen. Eusebius says of him, that, " in 
expounding the first Psalm, he has given a catalogue of the sa- 
cred Books in the Old Testament, writing as follows :* " Let it 
not be unknown that the canonical books, as the Hebrews trans- 
mit them, are twenty-two; for such is the number of letters 
among them." A little further on, he adds, " These are the 
twenty-two books of the Hebrews : the Book called Genesis with 
us, but among the Hebrews, from the beginning of the Book, 
Bereshith, which means, In the Beginning : Exodus, Valmoth, 
that is, These are the Names : Leviticus, Vaikra, And he Called : 
Numbers, Ammisphekodeum : Deuteronomy, Ellahhaddebarim, 
These are the Words : Jesus, the Son of Nave : Joshua Ben 
Nun : Judges, Ruth, with them united in one book called So- 



* Toi/ fi£v roiys 7rpQ)Tov E&yovjjiEvog "^aAjuaw, ekBegiv TTETtoirjrai (Q,pij£VT]g} tov 
to)v tepoiv ypafcov rm naXaiag SiaOrjKrig KaraXoyov , coSe nug ypcKpcov Kara Xe£lv' ovk 
ayvorjreov <5' eivai rag Ev6taQr}Kovg fiifiXovg, a>? JL0paioi Trapadidoaaiv, 8vo kcli eikogl' 
ocog o apiOjxog toiv irapa avroig gov^eicov egtiv' eira fxsra riva, erutyepsi Xsyoiv. eicri 6e 
at eiKoai Svo (3i@Xoi Ka6' Rfipatovg atSe' j? rrapa rifxoov TsvEGig ETziyeypajjifxsvrj. napa Se 
ILfipaioig airo rrjg ap^rjg rr]g PifiXov ftprjaid, oirep egtiv ev apyr\' E|ocW, ovaXecfJiud, 
oirep egti ravra ra ovofj.ara' Aevitikov, ovupi, xai ekoXsglv' A.ptd[xot afi/jisacbeKoSeifJi 
A£VTEpovo[JLiov, eXXe aSSsPapip. ovtol oi Xoyoi' Irjaovg viog Nau/7, Iojgve /3ev Now' 
Kptrcu, Pot>0, nap 1 avroig ev evi caxirrt/i. ^aGiXuwv 7rpa>TJ7, fcvTEpa, Trap' avroig ev Ea//- 
0U/7A, dEoxXrirog' j3aai\£icov rpri^ TEraprri, ev evi ova^cAe^ AafiiS. OTrsp egti fiaGiXsia 
AafiiS. TlapaXEiTToixEvoiv TrpwTr], SwrEpa, ev evi, difipr) aiapin, oTttp egti \oyoi rjnEpoyv* 
~E,Gdpag irpa)Tog Kai SEvrspog ev vi y E£pa, o egti 0or]9og- 6i/3Xog ^aXficov GE(p£p OiXXip. 
JuoXoixcovrog TYapoiniai {jligXojO, E^c/cXnciaoTT??, kojeXeO' A-Gpa Ao^araw, Gip aGGipifx. 
Hcaia?, lEGaia, lEpfiiag gvv Qprjvoig tcai rr\ ettigtoXt} ev evi, IpEfxia. AavirjX, AavtrjX. 
Ie^ekitjX, Iee^ktiX. loo/?. Ea-0?7p, Eo-fl^. c|a> 6e tovtcov egti ra Maua/?a«a, anEp EitiyEy- 

pairrat T,apj3r}6 <rap/3av£ e\. Origen. Can. jr. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. vi. 25. 



318 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

phetim : Kings, first and second, with them, in one called Sam- 
uel, the Called of God : the third and fourth of Kings, in one 
book, Vahammelech Dabid, that is, the Kingdom of David : the 
first and second of Chronicles, in one book called, Dibre Hia- 
mim, that is, the Records of Days : the first and second of Esdras, 
in one book, called Ezra, that is The Assistant: the Book of 
Psalms, Sopher Tehillim : the Proverbs of Solomon, Misloth : 
Ecclesiastes, Koheleth : the Song of Songs, Sir Hasirim : Esaias, 
Jesair : Jeremiah with the Lamentations and his Epistle, in one 
volume, Jeremiah : Daniel, Daniel : Ezekiel, Iesekell : Job, Job : 
Esther, Esther : beside these, there are also the Maccabees, which 
are inscribed Sarbeth Sarbaneel." In this catalogue the book 
of the twelve minor Prophets is omitted through a mistake of 
the transcriber. It is supplied both by Nicephorus and Kuffinus. 
By the Epistle of Jeremiah we are not to understand the apocry- 
phal letter, for the Jews never received that as canonical, but the 
one which occurs in the twenty-ninth chapter of the book of his 
Prophecy. 

Such then is Origen's catalogue, in which, although he has 
followed the Jews, for they are the only safe guides on this sub- 
ject, he has given, according to Eusebius, " the boohs in the Sa- 
cred Scriptures of the Old Testament.' 1 It is expressly stated 
that the Maccabees are out of the Canon ; and of the other works 
in the Apocrypha, not a syllable is mentioned. 

The Epistle to Julius Africanus upon which you have relied 
to make Origen contradict himself, does not assert the Divine in- 
spiration of the story of Susannah, but vindicates it simply as a 
historical narrative from the charge of being a fabulous impos- 
ture. Africanus had asserted the book to be a fiction, grossly 
spurious, and utterly unworthy of credit. It was from this accu- 
sation that Origen defended it, and showed conclusively that some 
of the reasoning which his friend adopted, if carried out into its 
legitimate results, would sadly mutilate even the records which 
the Jews acknowledged. The church had permitted this story 
to be read f and Origen maintains its substantial authenticity, in 
order that the church might not be subject to the odious imputa- 

* Vide Opera Origen, vol, i. pp. 10, seq. 



AFOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 319 

tion of having given to her children fables for truth. Such books 
were recommended to the faithful, as valuable helps to their per- 
sonal improvement. This was evidently done upon the suppo- 
sition that the facts which they contained were worthy of credit ; 
and as this was, perhaps, the general belief, in which Africanus 
could not concur, Origen merely intended to prove that it was 
not at least without some foundation. 

It is true that this Father has freely quoted the Apocryphal 
books under the same titles which are usually bestowed on the 
canonical Scriptures. So also has he quoted in the same way 
the spurious prophecy of Enoch, the Shepherd of Hermas, the 
Acts of Paul, and the Gospel according to the Hebrews. He 
has even gone so far, in reference to the Shepherd, as to say that 
this Scripture was, as he supposed, divinely inspired* I cannot 
believe, however, that Origen intended to convey the idea that 
this mystical medley should be entitled to equal veneration with 
the Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists. He simply meant to 
commend the heavenly and holy impulses under which, as he 
conceived, the work had been written. From incidental ex- 
pressions of this sort, which are often nothing but terms of re- 
spect, we are not to gather the real position which, in the 
opinions of those who use them, a book is to occupy in relation 
to the canon of supernatural inspiration. There is nothing, con- 
sequently, to diminish the value or obviate the force of the plain 
and pointed testimony which Origen has given to the books of 
the Old Testament, in a formal catalogue in which they are pro- 
fessedly numbered and arranged. 

III. I shall now give the canon of Athanasius, which may be 
found in his Festal Epistle. t " For I fear," says he, " lest some 



* Puto tamen, quod Hermas ista sit scriptor libelli illius, qui Pastor appella- 
tor: quae scriptura valde milii utilis videtur, et ut puto, divinitus inspirata. — 
Explan. Rom. xvi. 14. 

t JLiradrjirep riyeg eTTe^eip^aav avara^aaOai eavroig ra Xeyofxeua AiroKpvcpa kcli £7rt^t- 
|at ravra rr\ QeoitvzvoTy ypcupr) nepi r)g eTr\r]po(bopr)dn£v, KaOcjg TzapsSoaav roig irarpaaiv 
01 cur ap^rjg avroirrai kcii VTrrjperai yevo^ievoi rov \oyov' edo^e Kdjjioi TrporpaTrevTi irapa 
yvr)<TLuv a6e\(poiv Kdi ^aBovTi avcoOev, £%rig EKOeadat ra K_avnviKOfieXa Kdi rapaSoOsvra 
TnoTEvQsvTd re deia sivai PiffXia* iva SKaa-Tog, si pev rj-rrarrjOr), Karayvo) tcjv Tz\avr}aavTOiv' 
o $s KdBapog Siafteivag X ai P rj na ^ lv vnofxifivrfaKOjiSvog. Ert rotvvv rrjg fx£v ira\aiag AiaOrj- 



320 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

few of the weaker sort should be seduced from their simplicity 
and purity, by the cunning of some men, and at last be led to 
make use of other books called Apocryphal, being deceived by the 
similarity of their names, which are like those of the true books. 
I therefore entreat you to forbear, if I write to remind you of 
what you already know, because it is necessary and profitable to 
the church. Now, while I am about to remind you of these 
things, to excuse my undertaking, I will make use of the ex- 
ample of Luke the Evangelist, saying also myself — ' Forasmuch 
as some have taken in hand to set forth writings called Apocry- 
phal, and to write them with the God-inspired Scripture in which 
we have full confidence, as they, who from the first were eye- 
witnesses and ministers of the word, delivered them to the 
Fathers, it has seemed good to me, after consulting with the 
true brethren, and inquiring from the beginning, to set forth 
those books which are canonical, which have been handed down 
to us, and are believed to be Divine, so that every one who has 
been deceived may condemn his deceivers, and that he who re- 
mains pure may rejoice when again put in remembrance of 
these. All the books of the Old Testament are two and twenty 
in number ; for, as I have heard, that is the order and number 
of the Hebrew letters. To name them, they are as follows : the 
first Genesis, the next Exodus, then Leviticus, after that the 
Numbers, and then Deuteronomy ; after that Ruth ; and again, 
the next in order, are the four books of the Kingdoms, of these the 
first and second are reckoned one book, and, in like manner, 
the third and fourth are one book ; after them the first and 

Kris PiP\ia to) apiOno) ra iravra E t k o er i 6 v o . Toaavra yap, ws tjkovggl, Kai to. 
CTOi%£ia ra irap* E>/3paiois eivai napaSeSjrai. rrj fis ra^at koli too ovofxan eqtiv exaarov 

QVTUiS' TlpOJTOV YeVEGIS, £IT(X E|oOOf, EITOL A.EVITIKOV, KCU [XETO. TOVTO ApidfiOl, KCll Aot- 

ttov T) AevTepovojxioV e^rjs Ss rovroig ectiv o \t}gov tov Navrj, kul ~K.pirai. Kai fiera 
tovto r} Pov0. Kat rra\tv s^rjs ftaaiXeiojv TEaaapa /?t/?Ata* Kai tovtojv to jxev irpoiTOv koli 

SeVTEpOV EIS EV fil/3\lOV CCpiOfjlEl' TO 6e TpiTOV Kai TETCipTOV O/XOKxiS SIS EV . Mera $£ 

tclvtcl Tlapa\£iirouEva a koli /?' Ofioioog £ig ev fiifiXiop -rraXiv apiBuovnEva Etra EcrJjOa? a' 
Kai /?' ofxoiwg Eig ev. Mera Se Tavra fiifiXos tyaXfxcov, Kai E^rjs Jlapoifjuai. Etra 
jLiKKXrjviacrrris Kai Aoy/a Ao-fxaTOiv. TLpos tovtois eotl Kai Iw/?, /cat Xoiirov \\potyr\rai 01 
fiEv ScodEKa eis ev @i/3\iov apid[jiovfx£voi. Rira Htratac;, Ispsfxias Kai aw avru) Bapov%, 
Qprjvoi, Kai E7rtoroX)7, Kai /ur' avTov E^e/ctTjA Kai AaviiqX. A^pi tovtiov Ta tyis naXaiag 
SiadrjKrjs lo-raTai. Athanas. Opp. torn, ii. p. 38. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 321 

second of the Remains, or Chronicles, are in like manner ac- 
counted one book ; then the first and second of Esdras, also reck- 
oned one book ; after them the book of the Psalms ; then the 
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; beside these 
there is Job, and at length the Prophets : the twelve are reck- 
oned one book ; then Isaiah and Jeremiah, and with him, 
Baruch, the Lamentations, the Epistle ; and after them Ezekiel 
and Daniel. Thus far the books of the Old Testament. ,; Hav- 
ing given the Canon of the New Testament, he proceeds : " For 
the sake of greater accuracy, I will add — and the addition is ne- 
cessary — that there are also other books, beside these, not in- 
deed admitted into the canon, but ordained by the Fathers to be 
read by such as have recently come over to us, and who wish to 
receive instruction in the doctrine of piety — the Wisdom of Solo- 
mon, the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, 
the Doctrine of the Apostles, as it is called, and the Shepherd." 

To the same purpose is the account which is given in the 
Synopsis of Scripture, which is usually quoted under the name 
of Athanasius * " All the Scripture of us Christians is divinely 
inspired. It contains not indefinite, but rather determined and 
canonized books. These belong to the Old Testament." Then 
follows the same enumeration which has just been extracted 
from the Paschal Epistle. It is afterwards added : " But beside 
these, there are other books of the same Old Testament, not 
canonical, but only read by (or to) the Catechumens. Such are 
the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, 
Esther, Judith, and Tobit. These are not canonical" 

The canonical book of Esther, though not particularly num- 
bered in these catalogues, is included under the general name 
of Ezra. The additions to it, however, are expressly mentioned 

* Ilao-a ypcupri nptov xpioriavuv Oeoirvevarog £<ttiv, ovk aopiara Se, aXAa fxaWov 
wp«T[xcva K at KZKavovivpzva e X u ra PifiXia. Kai sen rrjs jxev TtaXaiag SiaB^m ravra. 
Ektos Se Tovruiv eiai iraXiv erepa 0L,6\ta rrjg avrrjg naXaiag SiaQriKtjg. ov Kavovi^Gfieva 
pev. avayivuaKOfieva 6e jxovov rotg Karny^ovutvoig ravrai ' T>Q(f)ia LoXofxwvTog, Hocpia Irjvov 
viov Zipax, EaQrjp' IovSlO, TwjSir. Toaavra koli ra jxrj Kavovi$opeva. Tiveg [xevroi 
7U>v TxakaiLov zipr\Ka.ai KavovifrvOat Trap' E/3patoig Kai ty}v Eadnp' Kai rrjv jxsv Pov9, fxcra 
roiv Kpirav svovpstnjv, sis ev fiiffXtov apiOpEiadai rr t v Se Evdnp eiS erepov ev. K ai ovrcj 
iraXiv eig elkogi Svo avfinXripovaQai rov apiQpLov rm Kavofii^ofievbiii Trapq avroig /3i/3Xiojv 

— Athan. Opp. ii. p. 126, seq, 

15 



322 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

lind repudiated. For the Esther which is proscribed by name, 
is not the book which the Jews received, but the one which 
opens with the dream of Mordecai. In this Synopsis, Athana- 
sius not only gives a list of the books, but inserts the sentence 
with which each of them begins, in order that they might be 
easily identified, and he expressly tells us that the Esther which 
he means, commences in the manner which has just been speci- 
fied:- We are, therefore, at no loss to determine what he in- 
tended to condemn and repudiate under the title of Esther. The 
name of Baruch occurs in these catalogues, as it does also in 
those of Cyril and the Council of Laodicea, but it is only a fuller 
expression for the book of Jeremiah. " For Baruch's name," 
says Bishop Cosin,* " is famous in Jeremy, whose disciple and 
scribe he was, suffering the same persecution and banishment 
that Jeremy did, and publishing the same words and prophecies 
that Jeremy had required him to write, so that in several rela- 
tions a great part of the book may be attributed to them both. 
And very probable it is, that for this reason the Fathers that fol- 
lowed Origen, did not only, after his example, join the Lamenta- 
tions and the Epistle to Jeremy, but the name of Baruch be- 
sides ; whereby they intended nothing else (as by keeping them- 
selves precisely to the number of twenty-two books only is clear) 
than what was inserted concerning Baruch in the book of Jere- 
my itself."* 

IV. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers in France, thus enumerates the 

* Vide Cosin. Scholast. Hist. pp. 59. 

t Et ea causa est, ut in viginti duos libros lex Testament! veteris depute- 
£ur, ut cum literatum numero convenirent. Qui ita secundum tradition es ve- 
terum deputantur, ut Mosis sint libri quinque ; Jesu Naue sextus ; Judicum et 
Ruth septimus ; primus et secundus Regnorum in octavum, tertius et quartus in 
nonum ; Paralipomenon duo in decimum sint, sermones dierum. Esdrae in 
undecimum ; Liber Psalmorum in duodecimum ; Salomonis Proverbia ; Ecclesi- 
astes ; Canticum Canticorum in tertium decimum, et quartum decimum, et 
quintum decimum ; duodecim autem Prophetae in sextum decimum ; Esaias 
deinde et Jeremias cum Lamentatione et Epistola ; sed et Daniel, et Ezechiel, 
et Job, et Hester, viginti et duum librorum numerum consumment. Quibus- 
dam autem visum est, additis Tobia et Judith viginti quatuor libros secundum 
numerum Grsecarum literarum connumerare. — Hilari. Prologo in Psalmos, n. 
xv. p. m. 9. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 323 

books of the Old Testament, which he assures us, according to 
the tradition of the ancients, amounted to twenty-two. " Five of 
Moses; Joshua the son of Nun, the sixth; Judges and Ruth, the 
seventh ; first and second Kings, the eighth ; third and fourth 
Kings, the ninth ; two books of Chronicles, the tenth ; Ezra, the 
eleventh ; Psalms, the twelfth ; Ecclesiastes and Canticles, the 
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth; the Twelve Prophets, the 
sixteenth; then Isaiah, and Jeremiah together with his Lamen- 
tations and his Epistle : Daniel, and Ezekiel, and Job, and Esther 
make up the full number of twenty-two books." 

V. Contemporary with Athanasius and Hilary was Cyril, 
Bishop of Jerusalem, a prominent member of the second general 
council of Constantinople. His opinions of the canon may be 
gathered from the following passage:* " Learn diligently from 
the Church what are the books of the Old Testament, and what 
of the New, but read me none of the Apocryphal. For if you do 
not know the books acknowledged by all, why do you vainly 
trouble yourself about the disputed books ? Read then the Di- 
vine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, 
which have been translated by the seventy-two interpreters. Of the 
Law, the first are the five books of Moses : then Jesus the son of 
Nave ; and the book of Judges with Ruth which is numbered the 
seventh : then follow other historical books, the first and second 



* QiXopaOwg emyvwQi irapa rrjg eKK^rjaiag, iroiai pev ziaiv ai rrjg naXaiag SiaOrjKrjs 
/?i/?Xof, rroiai Ss rrjg xaivns Kai poi prjSev tcjv cnroKpvipcov avayivioaKe. O yap ra irapa 
iraaiv opoXoyovpeva prj eiScog, ri vrepi ra ap<pi(3a\\op£va raXaircwpEig parrjv j A.vayi- 
yvoiUKt rag deiag ypacpag, rag eikocti 6vo 8i,6Xovg rrjg iraXaiag diadrjKrjg, Tag vno rcov 
e(S5opr)Kovra Svo Epprjvsvrcov epfjLtjvevdsicag . . . rov vopov p£v yap siaiv at Mcooxcos 7rpoo- 
rai ttsvtc fiifiXoi . . . e&g Ss, Irjaovg viog Nau>7, Kai ro)v Kpirwi/ psra rr\g ~Pov6 fiifiXi- 
ov £@Sopov apiOpovpwov, riov Se Xoitcwv laropiKOdv fitfiXicov. irpwrr) Kai Sevrepa tcjv 
Bao-iXacoy pi a nap' JLfipaioig eari fiiQXog • pia 6s Kai r\ Tpirrj Kai 77 Teraprr] • opoiaig Se 
nap 1 avroig Kai toiv HapaXenropevuv t) irpoirr) Kai r\ Sevrepa pia Tvy%av£i fiifiXog, Kai 
tov JLvSpa r/ irpcorri Kai rj Sevrepa pia XsXoyiarai. SwAsKaTri fiifiXog r) ILcrOrjp. Kat ra pev 
KxropiKa ravra. Ta 6s aroi^-qpa rvy^avei -evrrj ' la>/?, Kai QiBXog 'tyaXpiov, ko.i Uapoi- 
piai, Kai ^iKK\r]tjia<XTris , Kai A.apa Aoy/arcoy, snraKaiSeKarov fii(3Xiov. Iltti 6s rovroig ra 
Ttpo<br\~iKa ~zvrs ' rcov 6coo£<a Trpocprjrojv pia @i(3Xog, Kai Usaiov pia } kui lepepiov pera 
Baoov^ Kai Qprivwv Kai STTiaroXrjg ' sira le^£Kirj\ ' Kai r\ rov AavirjX siKoam Sevrspa 

fiifJXog Trig taX. Sia9. Cyril. Hierosol. Cateches. iv. 33-36, pp. 67-69, ed. 
Tutlei. 



324 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

of the Kingdoms (one book according to the Hebrews) : the third 
and fourth are also one book : the first and second of the Chroni- 
cles are, in like manner, reckoned as one book by them : the first 
and second of Ezra are counted as one book. The twelfth is Es- 
ther. These are the historical books. The books written in verse 
are five, Job and the book of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and 
the Song of Songs : making the seventeenth book. After these 
are the five prophetical books, one of the twelve Prophets, one of 
Isaiah, one of Jeremiah, with Baruch, Lamentations and an 
Epistle : then Ezekiel, and the book of Daniel the twenty-second 
book of the Old Testament." 

VI. In the writings of Epiphanius we have no less than three 
catalogues of the books of the Old Testament, which, as they are 
all essentially the same, I shall trouble the reader with only one.* 
" Twenty-seven books acknowledged and received into the Old 
Testament, which, according to the letters of the Hebrew alpha- 
bet are counted as twenty-two, have been interpreted. For there 

* Rikocu enra fiifiXoi ai prjTat Kai EvSiaOsToi, eikogi Se Kai Svo Kara ttjv tov AX0a- 
firjrov 7rap' IZPpaioig aroi^etoiaiv apiQfxovfXEvai ripjxrjvEvOriaav. IZikogi yap kcli Svo evovgi 
CTOi^Eicog voriiiara. ttevte Se ektiv c| avTcov SnrXovfXEva. to yap Ka0 can SinXovv, Kai 
to 'M.ev, Kai to "Now, Kai to <D<, Kai to ZaJc. Aio Kai ai PifiXoi Kara tovtov tov Tpo- 
irov eikocti Svo [xev apiB [jiovvTai, ELKoaiETiTa Se svpicKOVTai. Sta to -ttevte £% avTOiv SinXovOai. 
TivvairTSrai yap r\ T?ov9 roig HpiTaig. Kai apidjiEiTai irap* Rfipaioig pia /3i(3\og. Hvvair- 
TETai rj TrpoiTt] TOiv TlapaXEinonEvcov ty] SsvTepa, Kai \syETai fxia fiifiXog. TtwaiTTETai rj 
irpoiTr] to)v Bao-tXftwi/ ttj SsvTspa, Kai \sysTai fjiia fiifiXog TiVvanTETai i) TpiTr\ ttj Tsrap- 
ty], Kai ~Ssy£Tai [xia fiifiXog. OvTwg yovv ovyKEivTai ai fiifiXoi ev TiEVTaTEv^oig TETapai. 
Kai ixsvovaiv a\\a Svo vcTEpovo~ai' (og tivai Tag EvSiaQsTovg fiifiXovg ovTCog. Uevte [aep 
vo[xiKag, Yeveciv, E|o<W, A.evitikov, A-pidpovg, AsvTEpovo[xiov, avTrj rj TL£VTaT£v%og Kai 
77 NojxoOEVia. Uevte yap ori^psig. r\ tov Ioi/3 @i/3\og. Eira to ^ifa^Tripiov, Yiapoijiiai 
YioXojxoiVTog, EiKKXrio'iao'Trjg, Ao-jua Ao-/xarcoi/. Etra aAArj TlsvTarEv^og Ta KaXovfiEva 
YpoL<p£ia,ivapa tivi Se A.yioypa<pa Xeyo^ci/a, aTivasaTiv ovTCjg' Irjcov tov Navrj (3i$\og. 
KpiTtov /AEra TY\g Povd. TLapaXsnro/jiEvuiv irpoyTri fxETa Trig SsvTspag, Bao-tXacov -rrpcoTr) jxetu 
Trig TETaprr/g. avrrj TpiTrj TlEVTaTEV^og. A\\rj UEVTaTEVftog to A(x)SEKanpo(pr]TOv, Htra- 
iag % IspEfxiag, Ic^egtqX, AavirjX. Kat avTri rjUpotyrjTiKr] YlEVTaTEV^og. JLfxEivav Se aXXai 
Svo, aiTivsg Eiai tov KoSpa fiia Kai avrn Xoyi^o/jLEvrj. Kai a\\r) fiiffXog, rj Tr\g Ea0»7p ko\ei- 
Tai, EiTrXripcodrjo-av ovv ai eikociSvo 0i,8\oi Kara tov apidjxov tcjv eikogiSvo aroi^sicov 
trap 1 Kppaioig. At yap ari^ripEig Svo fiifiXoi, tjte tov TtoXofioiVTog >? UavapETog Xeyo- 
[XEvr), Kai r\ tov \naov tov viov Htpax, EKyovov Se tov Irjorov, tov Kai Tt\v 51o(piav, Efipaiari 
ypaipavTog rjv EKyovog aVTOV Irjaovg £p[xr]v£vcag cXXr/i/tcrrt EypaxpE, Kai avTai ^prj(7i[jioi 
/xev Eiai, Kai GxpEXijxoi, aXX' eig apiOfAov prjTwv ovk ava<pspovTai. Epipha. de Fonderi- 

bus et Mens. 3. 4. pp. 161, 162. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 325 

are twenty-two letters among the Hebrews, five of which have a 
double form. For Caph is double, so also are Mem and Nun, and 
Phi and Zade. But since five letters among them are doubled, 
and therefore, there are really twenty-seven letters, whick are 
reduced to twenty-two, so, for this reason, they enumerate their 
books as twenty-two, though in reality twenty-seven. For the 
book of Ruth is joined to the book of Judges and the two together 
are counted as one by the Hebrews. The first and second Kings 
are also counted as one book : and in like manner, the third and 
fourth of Kings are reckoned as one. And in this way all the 
books of the Old Testament are comprehended in five penta- 
teuchs, with two other books not included in these divisions. Five 
pertain to the Law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deu- 
teronomy. This is the pentateuch in which the Law is contain- 
ed. Five are poetical ; Job, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon, Ec- 
clesiastes and Canticles. Then another pentateuch embraces 
the Hagiographa, Joshua, Judges and Ruth, first and second 
Chronicles, first and second Kings, and third and fourth of Kings. 
This is the third pentateuch. Another pentateuch contains the 
twelve Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Beside 
these there remain the two books of Ezra which are counted as 
one, and the book of Esther. In this way the twenty-two books 
are made out according to the number of the Hebrew letters. As 
for those two books, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom 
of Jesus the son of Sirach, written by the grandfather in Hebrew, 
and translated by the grandson into Greek, they are profitable 
and useful, but not counted in the number of the received books." 
VII. The following is the canon of Gregory Nazianzen,* 

* laTopixai (lev £i<ri Pi/3\oi SvoKaiSsKa -rraaai, 
T?7£ ap%aiOT£pr)S £&poL'(KY)s aoipirjg. 
UpcxyricTY] TevecriSj ar' E|oJo? Aevitikov ts. 
E7T£ir' Apifytot ' eira Asvrepog vojiog. 
Eraix' lyaovs Kai l£.piTai ' Pov0 oySorj. 
H <5' £vvr)TY) SeKarr] rt fiifiXoi Trpa&ig BacrtX»7Wv t 
Kai Tlapa^enroiievai. Ec^arov ILcSpav £%£i£. 
At $£ (TTl^rjpat TT£VT£j o>v irpoiTOS "/ !&>/?, 

Ewtra AaviS ' £ira rp£ig Ho\ojjiu)VTiai } 
TLiKKXrjcriacTrig, A^a, kcu Tlapoifjiiai. 

Kat Ftvd 1 OfXOlUg TTV£V(XaTO$ TTPO(f)f)TlKQV, 



326 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

There are twelve historical books of the most ancient Hebrew 
wisdom : the first Genesis ; then Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 
Deuteronomy; the next Joshua, the Judges, Ruth, the eighth; 
nintlf and tenth the acts of the Kings, and then the Remains and 
Esdras the last. Then the five books in verse, the first Job, 
next David, then the three books of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the 
Song, and the Proverbs. The prophetic books are five ; the 
twelve Prophets are one book, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Jonah, 
Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, all 
these make one book : the second is Isaiah, then Jeremiah, Eze- 
kiel and Daniel : which make twenty-two books, according to the 
number of the Hebrew letters. " 

VIII. To the same purport is the Poetical canon of Amphi- 
lochius, the intimate friend of Gregory and Basil, given in a let- 
ter which he wrote to Zeleuchus, exhorting him to the study of 
piety and learning. 

IX. The testimony of Jerome is clear, pointed and explicit. 
In his famous Prologus Galeatus, he says :* " The language of 

Mtay /xev eiaiv eg ypa<priv 01 ScoSeKa, 

£lar)E k' A/itof, Kai Mt^cua? o rptrog ' 
KrreiT 1 IcotjX ' sir laivag, A.@St.as, 
Naou/x r£, AfifidKovn re, Kai Tiotyoviag, 
A-yyaiog, eira 'Zta^aptag, MaXa^ia?. 
Mia fjiev oiSe. Aevrepa S 1 Haaiag. 
E7r£t0' o KXrjOeig lep£[Aiag £K@p£(povg. 
Eir' E^g/a^X, Kai Aavirj\ov % a P ls ' 
A.p%aiog fisv edrjKa 6vo Kai sikogi /?(/?Xou?, 

Toig raw JLflpaicov ypa[*jjia<Tiv avriderovg. 

Greg. Naz. Opp. torn. ii. p. 98- 

* Viginti et duas literas (says he in the Prologus Galeatus) esse apud He- 
brasos, Syrorum quoque lingua Chaldaeorum testatur que Hebraeos magna est 
parte confinis est. Nam et ipsi viginti duo elementa habent eodem sono et 
diversis characteribus. Porro quinque litterse duplices apud Hebraeos sunt : 
Caph. mem. nun. pe. sade. Unde et quinque a plerisque libri duplices existi- 
mantur, Samuel, Melachim, Dibre Hajamim, Esdras, Jeremias cum Cinoth, id 
est lamentationibus suis. Quomodo igitur viginti duo elementa sunt, per quae 
scribimus Hebraeice omne quod loquimur, et eorum initiis vox humana compre- 
henditur : ita viginti duo volumina supputantur, quibus quasi Uteris et exordiis 
in Dei doctrina, tenera adhuc et lactens viri justi eruditur infantia. 

Primus apud eos liber vocatur Beresith, quern nos Genesin dicimus. Secun- 
dus Veelle Semoth. Tertius Vajicra, id est, Leviticus. Quartus Vajedabben 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 83? 

the Syrians and the Chaldees is a standing proof that there are 
two and twenty letters among the Hebrews. But among the He- 
brews five letters are double, €aph, Mem, Nun, Pe, Sade. Hence 
by most men, five books are considered as double; viz. Samuel, 
Melachim (Kings), Dibri Hajamin (Chronicles), Ezra, Jeremiah 
with Kinoth, that is, the Lamentations. Therefore, as there 
are twenty-two letters, so twenty-two volumes are reckoned. 
The first book is called by them, Bresith, by us Genesis ; the 
second is called Exodus ; the third, Leviticus ; the fourth, Num- 



quem Numeros vocamus. Quintus Elle Haddebarim, qui Deuteronomium pras- 
aotatur. Hi sunt quinque libri Mosis, quos proprie Thora, id est Legem, appellant. 

Secundum Prophetarum ordinem faciunt, et incipiunt ab Jesu filio Nave, 
que apud eos Josui Ben Nun dicitur. Deinde subtexunt Sophetim, id est Judi- 
cum librum ; et in eundam compingunt Ruth, quia in diebus Judicum facta 
ejus narratur historia. Tertius sequitur Samuel, quern nos Regum primum et 
secundum dicimus. Quartus Melachim, id est Regum qui tertio et quarto Re- 
gum et volumine continetur. Melius que multo est Melachim, id est Regum, 
quam Melachoth, id est Regnorum dicere. Non enim multarum gentium de- 
scribit regna, sed unius Israelitici populi, qui tribibus duodecim continetur. 
Quintus est Esais, sextus Jeremeas, septimus Ezechiel, octavus liber duodecim 
Prophetarum, qui apud illos vocatur Thereasae. 

Tertius ordo Hagiographa possidet. Et primus liber incipit a Job, secundus 
a David, quern quinque incisionibus et uno Psalmorum volumine comprehend- 
*mt. Tertius est Salomon, tres libros habens, Proverbia, quae illi Misle, id est 
Parabolas, appellant. Quartus Ecclesiastes, id est Coheleth, Quintus Canti- 
cum Canticorum, quern titulo Sir Hassirim praenotant. Sextus est Daniel, 
septimus Dibre Hajammim, id est, verba dierum, quod significantius chronicon 
totius divinae historiae possumus appellare, qui liber apud nos Paralipomenon 
primus et secundus inscribitur. Octavus Esdras, qui et ipse similiter apud 
Graecos et Latinos in duos libros divisus est. Nonus Esther. 

Atque ita fiunt pariter veteris Legis libri viginti duo, id est, Mosis quinque, 
et Prophetarum octo, Hagiographorum novem. 

Quanquam nonnulli Ruth et Cinoth inter Hagiographa scribent, et hos 
libros in suo putent numero supputandos, ae per hoe esse priscae Legis libros vi- 
ginti quatuor. 

Hie prologus Scripturarum quasi Oaleatum principium omnibus libris, quos 
de Hebraeo vertimus in Latinum, conveniro potest : ut scire valeamus, quicquid 
extra hos est, inter apocrypha esse ponendum. Igitur Sapientia, quae vulgo 
Salomonis inscribitur, et Jesu filii Sirach liber, et Judith, et Tobias, et Pastor 
non sunt in canone. MacchabaBorum primum libTum Hebraicum reperi. Se- 
cundus Graecus e.st, quod ex ipsa quoque phrasi probari potest. 



328 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

bers ; the fifth, Deuteronomy. These are the five books of 
Moses, which they call Thora, the law. The second class con- 
tains the prophets, which they begin with the book of Joshua, 
the son of Nun. The next is the book of the Judges, with 
which they join Ruth, her history happening in the time of the 
Judges. The third is Samuel, which we call the first and second 
book of the Kingdoms. The fourth is the book of the Kings, or 
the third and fourth book of the Kingdoms, or rather of the 
Kings ; for they do not contain the history of many nations, but 
of the people of Israel only — consisting of twelve tribes. The 
fifth is Isaiah; the sixth, Jeremiah; the seventh, Ezekiel ; the 
eighth, the book of the twelve Prophets. The third class, is 
that of Hagiographa, or sacred writings ; the first of which is 
Job ; the second, David, of which they make one volume, called 
the Psalms, divided into five parts ; the third is Solomon, of 
which there are three books — the Proverbs, or Parables, as they 
call them — the Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs ; the sixth is 
Daniel, the seventh is the Chronicles, consisting with us of two 
books, called the first and second of the Remains ; the eighth is 
Ezra, which among the Greeks and Latins makes two books ; 
the ninth is Esther. Thus there are in all two and twenty books 
of the old law ; that is, five books of Moses, eight of the prophets, 
and nine of the Hagiographa. But some reckon Ruth and the 
Lamentations among the Hagiographa ; so there will be four 
and twenty. This prologue I write as a preface to all the books 
to be translated by me from the Hebrew into Latin, that we 
may know that all the books which are not of this number, are 
to be reckoned Apocryphal ; therefore, Wisdom, which is com- 
monly called Solomon's, and the book of Jesus the son of Sirach, 
and Judith, and Tobit, and the Shepherd, are not in the canon. 
The first book of Maccabees I have found in Hebrew ; the second 
is Greek, as is evident from the style." We have two other 
catalogues furnished by Jerome, one in the Bibliotheca Divina, 
and the other in a letter to Paulinus, both exactly according 
with this. 

To these testimonies may be added a passage which occurs 
in the Preface to his translations of the books of Solomon ; # " I 

* Tres libros Salomonis, id est, Proverbia, Ecclesiasten, Canticum Canti- 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 329 

have translated," says he, "the three books of Solomon, that is, 
the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles, from the ancient ver- 
sion of the Seventy. As for the book called by many the Wis- 
dom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus, which all know to be writ- 
ten by Jesus the Son of Sirach, I have forborne to translate 
them ; for it was my intention to send you a correct edition of 
the canonical Scriptures, and not to bestow labor upon others." 
In the Prologue to his translation of Jeremiah, he says,* " he 
does not translate the book of Baruch, because it was neither in 
the Hebrew, nor received by the Jews." He also condemns the 
Apocryphal additions to Daniel, as not found in the Hebrew, and 
as having exposed Christians to ridicule, for the respect which 
they paid to them.t Although he translated Tobit and Judith, 
from Chaldee into Latin, yet he pronounces each of them to be 
Apocryphal. Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and Maccabees, he never 
translated at all. 

It is perfectly plain from these testimonies, that Jerome ac- 
knowledged no other books of the Old Testament to be inspired, 
but those which were received by the Jews ; and it deserves to 

coram, veteri Septuaginta interpretum auctoritate reddidi. Porro in eo libro, 
qui a plerisque sapientia Salomonis inscribitur, et in ecclesiastico, quern esse 
Jesu filii Sirach nullus ignorat, calamo temperavi ; tantummodo canonicas 
Scripturas vobis emendare desiderans, et studium meum certis magis quam 
dubiis commendare. — Pr. in Libr. Salom.juxta Septuag. Interp. t. i. p. 1419. 

* Librum autem Baruch, notarii ejus, qui apud Hebraeos nee legitur, nee 
habetur, praetermissimus. — JProl. in Germ. t. i. p. 554. 

t Hoc idcirco, ut difficultatern vobis Danielis ostenderem ; qui apud He- 
braeos nee Susannae habet historiam, nee Hymnum trium puerorum, nee Belis 
Draconisque fabulas ; quas nos, quia in toto orbe dispersae sunt, vero anteposito 
easque jugulante, subjecimus ; ne videremur apud imperitos magnam partem 
voluminis detruncasse. Audivi ego quendam de praeceptoribus Judaeorum, 
quum Susannae derideret historiam, et a Graeco ncscio quo diceret esse con- 
fectam, illud opponere quod Origeni quoque Africanus opposuit, etymologias 
has, euro rov o^tvov clival, k<ii ano tov irpi vov Trpiaai, de Graeco sermone de- 
scendere. Deinde tantum fuisse otii tribus pueris cavillabatur, ut in camino 
aestuantis incendii metro luderent, et per ordinem et laudem Dei omnia ele- 
menta provocarent. Aut quod miraculum divinaeque aspirationis judicum, vel 
draconem interfectum offa picis, vel sacerdotum Belis machinas deprehensas ] 
Quae magis prudentia solertes viri quam prophetati spiritu perpetrata. — Pr. in 
Dan. t. i.p. 990. 

15* 



330 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

be remarked that he characterized the Hebrew canon as emphati- 
cally the " canon of Hebrew verity." It was alone the infallible 
testimony of truth. 

The testimony of Jerome is felt to be so important and con- 
clusive, that Romanists have resorted to various expedients for 
the purpose of obviating its force. In the first place it has been 
contended that he was not treating of the canon of the Christian 
Church, nor of the books which, in his own opinion, ought to 
be received as inspired, but only of those which the Jews ac- 
knowledged. This objection, however, is so plainly inconsistent 
with the language which Jerome employs, that Bellarmin, too 
wise to defend it, frankly confesses that it is utterly without foun- 
dation. It is amazing how Cocceius, Catharinus and Canus 
could gravely have proposed an explanation of this sort, when it 
was clearly written before them that " the Church reads such 
and such books, but does not receive them as canonical" 

Cardinal Perron, who admits, however, that Jerome was treat- 
ing of the Christian canon, resorts to a solution so exceedingly 
ridiculous, that one cannot but conjecture that the Cardinal him- 
self was laboring under just the opposite infirmity. In his opin- 
ion, Jerome had not reached, when he wrote his memorable pro- 
logue, the ripeness of his studies. It is hard to fix any precise 
and definite period for the development and maturity of the in- 
tellectual powers. But to be an infant at fifty — and such was 
the age, according to the lowest calculation, which the venerable 
Father had then attained* — is an infirmity so closely approx- 
imating to absolute idiocy, that the Cardinal, I apprehend, will 
find it much more easy to convince his readers that he himself 
was on the borders of dotage, than that the author of such a 
composition as the Prologus Galeatus, was either a victim of im- 
becility of mind, or the extravagance and rashness of youth. 

It has also been attempted to destroy the force of this testi- 
mony, by asserting that he rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
This, however, is so far from being true, that he actually cites 
the Epistle under the name of Paul, and distinctly declares that 

* Jerome wrote his Prologue about the year 392. He was born according 
to Baronius about the year 340 ; according to others he was born still earlier. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 831 

he received it as authentic* He says, to be sure, that others 
doubted of it, but that is very different from calling it into ques- 
tion himself 

It is finally contended that he subsequently changed his 
opinions. But of this fact no evidence can be produced. The 
Jesuits, indeed, tell us that in his Apology against Ruffin, he re- 
tracted the censure which he had formerly pronounced upon the 
spurious additions to Daniel — that in his Preface to Tobit, he 
impugns the integrity of the Hebrew canon — in his Preface to 
Judith, and his exposition of the Psalms, he revokes what he had 
said of the book of Judith, and in his commentary upon Isaiah, 
retracts his assertions in relation to the Maccabees. Such are 
the grounds upon which it is contended he changed his opinions. 
It would be very easy, by a particular examination of the pas- 
sages which are cited, to show that there is no foundation what- 
ever for any of these assumptions. 

In reference to the Apocryphal additions to Daniel, RufEnus 
was as far from admitting their inspiration, as Jerome himself. 
He could not, therefore, with the least degree of propriety or 
consistency, censure his former friend for opinions which they 
held in common. But Jerome was understood to say, in his 
Preface to Daniel, that the stories of Susannah, and of Bel and 
the Dragon, were mere fabulous narrations. This is what he 
explains in his Apology against Ruffinus.f He asserts that he 
had been misunderstood, and that when he used such language in 
reference to these tales, he was not giving his own opinion of their 
value, but the sentiments of the Jews. He was willing to admit 
that they might be usefully and profitably read, but, so far was 
he from subscribing to their Divine inspiration, that he reiterates 
the approbation which he had formerly given of the Reply of 
Origen to Porphyry, who had quoted these works — " that they 
were not possessed of the authority of Scripture, and therefore 
Christians were not bound to defend them." There' is, conse- 
quently, but one principle on which Jerome can be made to en- 

* Nos et Apoc. et Epistolam Pduli ad Hebr&os recipimus^rrEpist. ad 
Dardanum. 

t Apol. 2 advs. Ruffin 



332 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

dorse the claims of these wretched fictions, and that is, whatever 
he did not believe to be fabulous, he must have believed to be 
inspired. 

In his Preface to Tobit, there is no retraction whatever. 
He simply states that he had yielded to the desire of the Bishops 
who had urged him to translate it, although in so doing he was 
aware that he had exposed himself to the reproach of the Jews. 
He adds, however, that he judged it better to displease the Phar- 
isees, than to disregard the injunctions of the Bishops.* But 
surely to translate a book — a book which was allowed to be read 
in the church, and was commended as a fit introduction to piety, 
(for so, many of the ancients regarded it,) does not necessarily 
imply that it was held to be inspired. And yet Jerome's expres- 
sions of willingness to displease the Jews, and to translate Tobit 
at the earnest request of his friends, is all the proof upon which it 
is asserted that he changed his mind in regard to it. I pay no 
attention to the obviously corrupted passage in which he repre- 
sents the Jews as ranking this book in the class of Hagiographa. 
The word Hagiographa is an evident mistake of the copyist for 
Apocrypha — and so the ablest doctors among the Romanists 
themselves have agreed. f The glaring falsehood of the asser- 
tion, upon any other supposition, is enough to show that the text 
is vitiated. 

So again it is contended that he changed his opinion in ref- 
erence to Judith, because he yielded to the entreaty of his friends, 
and consented to translate it. He was the more induced to do 
so, because the book itself presented an eminent example of chas- 
tity, and was suited to edify the people, and because the story 
went that the Council of Nice had inserted it in the canon.J On 
these grounds he translated the work, but not a hint does he 
drop that he received it as inspired. We may therefore con- 
clude in the words of Bishop Cosin : " And thus have we made 
it to appear that St. Jerome was always constat herein to him- 



* Prefat. in Tobiam. 

t Comestor, Hugo the Cardinal, Tortatus, Driedo, Catharin, have all pro- 
nounced it to be a corrupt reading. 
X Prefat. in Judith. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 333 

self. For in the year 392 he avowed his translation of the Bible, 
before which he placed his Prologus Galeatus, as a helmet of de- 
fence against the introduction of any other books that should 
pretend to be of equal authority with it. Not many years after, 
he wrote his Preface upon Tobit and Judith, and therein he 
changed not his mind. About the same time he wrote his Com- 
mentary upon the Prophet Haggai and his Epistle to Turia, 
wherein the book of Judith remaineth uncanonized. In the year 
396 he wrote his Epistle to Lseta, and therein he is still constant 
to his Prologue. About the same year he wrote upon the Pro- 
phet Jonas, where the book of Tobit is kept out of the canon. 
In the year 400 (or somewhat after) he wrote upon Daniel, and 
there Susannah, Bel and the Dragon, have no authority of Divine 
Scripture. And at the same time he wrote his Apologie against 
Ruffin, where he referreth to his former Prologues, and expressly 
denieth any retraction of them. About the year 409 he wrote 
upon Esay, where he revoketh nothing. And in the latter end 
of his age, he set forth his Commentary upon Ezechiel, wherein 
he acknowledged no more books of the Old Testament than he 
had counted before, but continued his belief and judgment herein 
to the day of his death, which followed not long after." 

X. I shall next give the testimony of Ruffinus,* once the beloved 

* Hie igitur spiritus sanctus est, qui in veteri testamento legem et prophetas, 
in novo evangelica et apostolos inspiravit. Unde apostolus dicit : omnis Scrip- 
tura inspirata utilis est ad docendum. Et ideo quae sunt novi ac veteris Testa- 
menti volumina, quae secundum majorum traditionem per ipsum spiritum sanc- 
tum inspirata creduntur, et ecclesiis Christi tradita, competens videtur hoc in 
ioco evidenti numero, sicut ex patrum monumentis accepimus, designare. Ita- 
que veteris Testamenti omnium primo Moysi quinque libri sunt traditi, Genesis, 
Exodus, Leviticus, Numerus, Deuteronomium ; post haec Jesus Nave, et Judicum, 
simul cum Ruth. Quatuor post haec Regnorum libri, quosHebraei duos numer- 
ant. Paralipomena, qui Dierum dicitur Liber, et Esdrae duo, quia apud illos 
singuli computantur, et Hester. Prophetarum vero Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, 
et Daniel, preterea duodecim Prophetarum, liber unus. Job quoque, et Psalmi 
David singuli sunt libri. Salomon vero tres ecclesiae tradidit, Proverbia, Eccle- 
siasten, Canticum Canticorum. In his concluserunt numerum librorum veteris 
Testamenti. Sciendum tamen est, quod et alii libri sunt, qui ne sunt canonici, 
sed ecclesiastici a majoribus appellati sunt ; ut est sapientia Salomonis, et alia 
Sapientia, quae dicitur filii Sirach, qui liber apud Latinos, hoc ipso generali vo- 
cabulo, Ecclesiasticus appellator, Duae Viae, vel Judicium Petri. Quae omnia 



334 ROMANTST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

friend, and afterwards the open and avowed adversary of Jerome. 
In his Exposition of the Apostles' Creed, he says, " This, then, 
is the Holy Spirit who, in the Old Testament, inspired the Law 
and the Prophets, and in the New, the Gospels and Epistles. 
Wherefore the Apostle says, that ' all Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine.' It will not, 
therefore, be improper to enumerate here the books of the New 
and the Old Testament, which we find by the monuments of the 
Fathers to have been delivered to the churches as inspired by the 
Holy Spirit. And of the Old Testament, in the first place, are 
the five books of Moses : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 
Deuteronomy. After these are Joshua the Son of Nun, and the 
Judges, together with Ruth. Next, the four books of the King- 
doms, (which the Hebrews reckon two,) the book of the Remains 
which is called the Chronicles, and two books of Ezra, which by 
them are reckoned one, and Esther. The Prophets are Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and besides, one book of the 
twelve Prophets. Job, also, and the Psalms of David. Solomon 
has left three books to the churches : the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
and the Song of Songs ; with these they include the number of 
the books of the Old Testament. However, it ought to be ob- 
served that there are also other books which are not canonical, 
but have been called by our forefathers, ecclesiastical : as the 
Wisdom of Solomon, and another, which is called the Wisdom 
of the Son of Sirach ; and, among the Latins, is called by the 
general name of Ecclesiasticus. By which title is denoted, not 
the author of the book, but the quality of the writing. In the 
same rank is the book of Tobit, and the books of the Maccabees. 
In the New Testament is the book of the Shepherd or of Her- 
mas, which is called the Two Ways, or the Judgment of Peter. 
All which they would have to be read in the churches, but not 

legi quidem in ecclesiis voluemnt, non tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his 
fidei confirmandam. Caeteras vero scripturas apocryphas nominarunt quas in 
ecclesiis legi noluerunt. Haec nobis a patribus, ut dixi, tradita, opportunum 
visum est hoc in loco designare, ad instructionem eorum, qui prima sibi eccle- 
siae ac fidei elementa suscipiunt, ut sciant ex quibus sibi fontibus verbi Deihau- 
rienda sint pocula. — Ruffin. in Symb. ap Cyprian in App. pp. 26, 27, et ap, 
Hier. t. v. pp. 141, 142. 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 335 

to be alleged by way of authority for proving articles of faith. 
Other Scriptures they called Apocryphal, which they would not 
have to be read in the churches." 

XI. I shall close this list of testimonies with the canon of the 
Council of Laodicea, which was afterwards confirmed at Con- 
stantinople in the close of the seventh century. The closing de- 
crees are in these words :* " Private Psalms should not be read 
in the church, nor any books which are not canonical, but only 
the canonical books of the Old and New Testament. The books 
of the Old Testament which ought to be read are these : I, The 
Genesis, or generation of the World ; 2, The Exodus out of 
Egypt; 3, Leviticus; 4, Numbers; 5, Deuteronomy; 6, Joshua 
the son of Nun ; 7, Judges with Ruth ; 8, Esther ; 9, The first 
and second books of Kings; 10, The third and fourth books of 
Kings; 11, The first and second books of Chronicles ; 12, The 
first and second books of Esdras ; 13, The book of 150 Psalms ; 
14, The Proverbs of Solomon; 15, The Ecclesiastes ; 16, The 
Song of Songs ; 17, Job ; 18, The twelve Prophets; 19, Isaiah ; 
20, Jeremiah and Baruch, the Lamentations and Epistle; 21, 
Ezekiel ; 22, Daniel." 

The only serious exception which can be taken to the testi- 
mony of this Council, is the fact that in the canon of the New 
Testament the Apocalypse of John is omitted. There are three 
hypotheses upon which this difficulty may be removed, each of 
which is fatal to the inspiration of the books in question. 

In the first place, it might have been the design of the Fathers 
simply to prescribe the books which should be read; and as the 
Apocalypse was of an abstruse and mystical character, they might 
have thought it expedient to leave it out in the public services 
of the church. But no such objections could have been alleged 

* Otl ov Act iSiaiTiKovg '^a'Xfj.ovg \syscQai ev rr\ eKKXrjaia, ovoe aKavoviara /?f/?A*a, 
aXka jiova ra kglvoviko. rrjg TraXaiag nai Kaivris SiaOrjKrjg. 

Oaa Ssi PifiXia avayivuxrKeaOai rrjg 7ca\aiag eiaQrjKrjg ' a' Yeveaig Koo-^ov. /?' E£- 
oSog e£ A-iyv-KTOv. y' A.£vitikov. 6' Apidyoi. e' A£VT£povof.uov. g' Ir}covg ~Navrj. 
f Kfurai, H?ovd. r\' YnjQrip. 6' RaaeXeiuv a Kai /?'. (/?' Radpag a' kcli /?'. iy' fii- 
6\og "^aX^wj/. 16' TlapoL[juai Tto^ofxcovrog. ie' EKKXrjaiaarrig. ig' A 07* a Ao-^arcoj/. (£' 
It.)/?. tJ?' ScJOEKa TlpotprjTai. iQ' Haaiag. ik' lepefxiag, Kai Bapov^, Qprjvoi Kai Jltti- 
aroXai. tea h&Kir)\. k@' Aaviri\ Canon of the Council of Laodicea. — Lab- 
beus et Copart, torn. i. p. 5007. 



336 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

against Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and Maccabees. These books 
were held to be eminently useful, and specially adapted to the 
instruction and improvement of recent converts. Their omis- 
sion, therefore, cannot be explained upon the same principle with 
the omission of the Apocalypse. Why then were they not admit- 
ted into the canon 1 But one answer can be given, and that is, 
they were not canonical. Though upon this hypothesis, the de- 
cree of Laodicea did not require all canonical books to be read, 
yet it permitted none to be used which were not canonical. 

In the second place, the Fathers might not have been satis- 
fied that the Apocalypse was really the work of John. It was 
the last of the sacred books, and the evidences of its inspiration 
might not have been fully known to the bishops at Laodicea. 
The primitive Christians guarded the Scriptures with diligence 
and care, and were willing to admit no book into the canon of 
inspiration until they had thoroughly examined its credentials. 
This very caution gives us greater confidence in their opinions, 
as it is a strong security that nothing was done rashly or without 
adequate foundation. But if the Apocrypha had been delivered 
by Christ and his apostles to the Christian church as inspired 
compositions, the evidence of the fact must have been as exten- 
sive as the Gospel itself. To doubt of them, therefore, is to 
condemn them. If the evidence of their inspiration was un- 
known in the middle of the fourth century, it must forever re- 
main in obscurity. The authors of the books had been dead for 
centuries — their names and memorials had vanished from the 
earth : there was no possibility of directly proving that they had 
confirmed their commission by signs and wonders. The only 
evidence which the church could enjoy was the testimony of 
men who were known to be inspired, and the only men to whom 
they could appeal were the apostles of Christ, and if for four cen- 
turies no traces are found of any testimony borne by those chosen 
heralds of the truth to the divine authority of these books, their 
claims must be abandoned as totally incapable of proof. 

The Revelation of John and the Apocryphal books did 'not 
stand upon the same footing. There were abundant means of 
proving that the one was written by the disciple whom Jesus 
loved, while there were no means whatever of attesting the other 



APOCRYPHA DISCUSSED AND REFUTED, 337 

to be the word of God. The fathers, therefore, might have 
been subsequently satisfied in reference to the one, which they 
never could have been in reference to the other. 

Finally, the Apocalypse may have been omitted in transcrib- 
ing the canon, by the negligence of copyists. This, I take to be 
the true solution of the difficulty. In some editions, the Epistle 
to Philemon is left out and in others inserted. But it w T ould have 
been an extraordinary blunder to have omitted through mistake 
such a collection of books as those which compose the Apocry- 
pha. Whichever, therefore, of these hypotheses we may choose 
to adopt to explain the difficulty in reference to Revelation, the 
Apocrypha must be rejected. 

The testimony of the Christian church for four hundred years 
has now been briefly reviewed, and we find an universal concur- 
rence in the canon of the Jews. North and south, east and west, 
in Europe, Asia and Africa, the most learned and distinguished de- 
fenders of the faith, however widely they differed or warmly dis- 
puted upon other points, are cordially at one whenever they treat 
of the documents which constitute the Eule of Faith. In all their 
catalogues the Apocrypha are excluded ; and in some instances 
it is expressly added that they were not to be received, as Trent 
assures us they should be, with the same piety and veneration 
which are due to the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. How, 
if Christ and His apostles had delivered these books to the Chris- 
tian church as inspired and authoritative records, how can we 
explain the amazing unanimity of the primitive fathers in rejecting 
them from the sacred canon? How comes it that, in no quarter 
of the earth, the injunctions of apostles were respected, but that 
even in the churches which had been planted by their hand and 
bedewed by their blood, in sixty years after the last of their num- 
ber had retired to his long repose, these books were excluded 
from a place in the list of inspired compositions I The fact is 
utterly inexplicable ; and if with the mass of historical testimony 
which has already been arrayed against their pretensions to Di- 
vine authority, they are after all 'a veritable part of the Word of God, 
truth and fiction are confounded, moral reasoning is at an end — 
and all responsibility for conduct or opinions must for ever cease. 

In the first place, they were confessedly rejected by the 



333 ROMANIST ARGUMENTS FOR THE 

Jewish church. The writers themselves were Jews ; and if they 
had been able to attest their inspiration by signs and wonders 
and mighty works, the only credentials of a messenger from hea- 
ven, their own nation must have known the fact. Yet the Jews 
with one voice repudiate these books. In the next place, they 
were rejected by the Son of God. For he approved and confirm- 
ed the Hebrew canon. And finally, they were rejected for four 
hundred years by the whole body of the Christian church. And 
yet, with all this amount of historical evidence against them, 
Trent has the audacity to declare that they are entitled to equal 
veneration with Moses, the Prophets, Evangelists and Apostles ; 
and when every other argument fails her, she only adds to her 
arrogance and blasphemy by pretending to " thunder with a 
voice like God" — to imitate the very style of Jehovah, and to 
command the nations to receive her canon, because she says it is 
Divine. 



APPENDIX. 

From the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century. 

THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS. 

BY PROFESSOR THORNWELL. 

In nothing is the intolerable arrogance of the Church of Rome 
more strikingly displayed, than in the authority which, if she does 
not formally claim, she yet pretends to exercise, of dispensing the 
Holy Ghost not merely to men themselves, but also to their wri- 
tings. Thus the famous Council of Trent has attempted to make 
that divine which is notoriously human, and that inspired which, in 
the sense of the Apostle, is notoriously of " private interpretation." 
We allude, of course, to the conduct of Rome in placing the 
Apocrypha upon an equal footing with the sacred oracles of God. 
Among the books which the " holy oecumenical and general 
Council of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit," has 
declared should be received with equal piety and veneration with 
the unquestioned word of God, and which indeed have God for 
their author, are Tobit, Judith, the additions to the Booh of Es- 
ther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with the Epistle of Jer- 
emiah, the Song of the Three Children, the story of Susannah, the 
story of Bel and the Dragon, and the first and second books of 
Maccabees. 

Having by its own authority constituted these books a part of 
the Word of God, the Holy Council proceeded to pronounce its 
usual malediction upon all who would not receive them as sacred 
and canonical. Now in direct opposition to this wicked and 
blasphemous sentence of Rome, we assert most unhesitatingly, 
and shall endeavor triumphantly to prove, that these books, com- 
monly called the Apocrypha, are neither " sacred nor canonical," 



340 APPENDIX. 

and of course, have no more authority in the Church of God 
than Seneca's Letters, or Tully's Offices. 

Let it be remarked, however, that the onus probandi rests upon 
the Papists. The presumption is against them until they adduce 
satisfactory testimony in behalf of their extravagant pretensions. 
Nay, even defect of proof is fatal to their cause. They bring us 
certain documents and declare that they were given by inspiration 
of God. We are bound to treat these documents, as we treat all 
other writings, merely as human productions, until clear and co- 
gent arguments for the Divine original are submitted to our un- 
derstandings. Hence, the Protestant cause is fully made out by 
failure of proof on the Part of the Romanists. We are not re- 
quired in justification of our position, to advance a single argu- 
ment against the inspiration of these books. Our course is a 
righteous, a necessary one, until they are proved to be inspired. 
We think it important that this high vantage ground of Protest- 
antism, in the argument upon this subject, should be fully appre- 
hended. Not because we are unable to prove that these books 
are not inspired, but in order that it may be distinctly understood 
that all our positive arguments against them are ex abundanti — 
are over and above what is actually required of us in the case. 
If our position is justified by failure on the part of Rome to es- 
tablish her assertion, it is more than justified — it is doubly forti 
fied and rendered wholly impregnable by the irresistible argu- 
ments which we are able to allege against the inspiration of the 
Apocryphal books. With the distinct understanding, then, that 
we are doing a work which justice to our own cause does not ab- 
solutely require, but which only exposes in a stronger light the 
arrogance and blasphemy of Rome, we proceed to show by a few 
positive considerations, that these books have not the shadow 
of a claim to Divine inspiration. 

1. Our first argument is drawn from the indisputable fact that 
these books were not found in the canon of the Jews in the time 
of our Saviour and his Apostles. It is even doubted by learned 
men whether some of them existed at all, until some time after 
the last of the Apostles had fallen asleep. But be this as it may, 
they were not in the sacred canon of the Jews or the catalogue 
of books which the whole nation received as coming from God, 



APPENDIX. 341 

We have very clear testimony upon the subject of the Jewish 
canon, in Josephus, Philo, the Talmud, and the early Christian 
Fathers. It is unnecessary to quote these testimonies at full 
length. Those who have not access to the original works, may 
find them faithfully collated in Schmidius De Canone Sacro, and 
in Eichhorn's Einleitung. We would particularly commend to 
the reader's attention Hernemann's book De Canone JPhilonis. 
Augustine again and again confesses that the Apocrypha formed 
no part of the Jewish canon. He declares that Solomon was not 
the author of the books of Ecclesiasticus and of Wisdom, and as- 
sures us, moreover, that these books were chiefly respected by 
the Western Christians. He informs us that Judith was not re- 
ceived by the Jews ; and his testimony in relation to Maccabees 
is equally decisive. We insist upon the testimony of Augustin, 
which maybe found in his Treatise De Civ. Dei, lib. i.c.17, because 
he had evidently a very great respect for these books, for he 
frequently quotes them ; and because he was a member of the 
bodies whose decisions in their favor have been strongly and 
earnestly pleaded. We take it then to be a fact which no scho- 
lar would think of calling into question, sustained by the con- 
curring testimony of Jews and Christians for four hundred years 
after Christ, that the Jews rejected the Apocrypha from their 
canon. For the purpose of our present argument it is not ne- 
cessary to show what books they did receive, nor how they 
classed and arranged them. It is enough that they had a canon 
which they believed to be inspired, and that in it the Apocrypha 
were not included. 

Now our argument is this : Jesus Christ and his Apostles ap- 
proved of the Jewish canon, whatever it was, appealed to it as 
possessing divine authority, and evidently treated it as at that 
time complete, or as containing the whole of God's revelation 
as far as it was then made. If the Apocrypha had been really a 
part of that revelation, and the Jews had either ignorantly or 
wickedly suppressed it, how comes it that Christ nowhere re- 
bukes them for their error? We find him severely inveighing 
against the Pharisees for adding to the Word of God by their 
vain traditions, but not a syllable do we hear in regard to what 
was equally culpable, their taking from it, which they certainly 



342 APPENDIX. 

had done if the Apocrypha were inspired. Here was confessed- 
ly a great teacher and prophet in Israel — their long-expected 
Messiah, who constituted the burden of their Scriptures, accord- 
ing to his own testimony ; and yet while he quotes and approves 
the canon of the Jews, and remands the Jews themselves to their 
own Scriptures, he nowhere insinuates that their sacred library 
was defective. If the Jews had done wrong in rejecting the 
Apocrypha, is it credible that he who came in the name of God, 
a teacher sent from God to reveal fully the Divine will, would 
have passed over without noticing such a flagrant fraud 1 We 
find him reproving his countrymen for every other corruption in 
regard to sacred things of which they are known to have been 
guilty, but not a whisper escapes his lips or the lips of his Apos- 
tles touching this gross suppression of a large portion of the 
Word of God. The conclusion is irresistible, that neither Jesus 
nor his Apostles believed in the Divine authority of the Apocry- 
pha ; they knew that they were not inspired. We will grant the 
Romanist what he cannot prove, and what we can disprove, that 
these books are quoted in the New Testament. This will not 
remove the difficulty. According to his views of the canon, the 
Jews were guilty of an outrageous fraud in regard to the Sacred 
Oracles, and yet neither Christ nor his Apostles, whose business 
it was to give us the whole revelation of God, ever charged them 
with this fraud, or took any steps to restore the rejected books to 
their proper places. Christ, as the great Prophet of the Church, 
was unfaithful to his high and solemn trust, if he stood silently 
by when the Word of God was trampled in the dust, or buried 
in obscurity, or even robbed of its full authority. To the Jews 
were committed the Oracles of God (Rom. iii. 2.) ; if they be- 
trayed their trust, we ought to have been informed of it before 
the lapse of sixteen centuries. 

It is in vain to allege that Christ and his Apostles used the 
Septuagint, and that this version contained the Apocrypha. In 
the first place, it cannot be proved that the Septuagint at that 
time did contain the Apocrypha ; in the second place, if it did 
contain them, the difficulty is rather increased than lessened. 
The question is, What books did the Jews, to whom were com- 
mitted the Oracles of God, receive as inspired? Did Christ 



APPENDIX. 343 

know that they rejected the Apocrypha from the list of inspired 
writings 1 If so, and the Septuagint version was in his hands, 
and really contained these rejected books, what more natural 
than that Christ should have told his apostles that here are books 
which the Jews reject, but which you must receive ; they are of 
equal authority with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms? 
His total silence both before the Jews and his own disciples be- 
comes more unaccountable than ever, if the books were actually 
before him and almost forced upon his notice by the version of 
the Scriptures which he used. But we do not insist upon this, 
because we do not believe that the Septuagint, at that time, con- 
tained the Apocrypha.* If it should be said that the Jews re- 
ceived these books as inspired but did not insert them in the 
canon, because they had not the authority of a prophet for doing 
so, why is it that Christ did not give the requisite authority, 
if not to the Popish priests and rulers, at least to his own Apos- 
tles? 

Upon every view of the subject, then, the silence of Christ 
is wholly unaccountable, if these writings are really inspired. It 
becomes simple and natural upon the supposition that they were 
merely human productions. The Jews had done right in reject- 
ing them ; they stood upon a footing with other literary works, 
and our Saviour had no more occasion^to mention them, than he 
had to mention the writings of the Greek Philosophers. 

2. If it should be pretended that Christ did give his Apostles 
authority to receive these books, though no record was made of 
the fact, we ask how it comes to pass — and we mention this as our 
second argument against them — that for four centuries the unbro- 
ken testimony of the Christian church is against their inspiration ? 
They are not included in the catalogues given by Melito,f Bish- 
op of Sardis, who flourished in the second century, of Origen,J 
Athanasius,§ Hilary, || Cyril of Jerusalem, ff Epiphanius,** Gre- 
gory Nazianzen,ft Ruffinus,f| and others; neither are they 



* Vid. Schmidius de Canone. t Euseb lib. iv. c. 26. 

% Expos. Psal. i. Opp. torn, ii. Euseb. vi. 25. § Pasch. Epist. 

|| Prolog, in Psalmos. IF 4th Cate. Exer. ** Hseres. i. 6. 

tt Can. 23. %% Expos, ad symb. apost. 



344 APPENDIX. 

mentioned among the canonical books recognized by the council 
of Laodicea. As a sample of the testimonies referred to in the 
margin, we v/ill give a few passages from Jerome, the author of 
the authentic version commonly called the Vulgate. In the 
preface concerning all the books of the Old Testament which he 
prefixed to his Latin translation of Samuel and Kings, after hav- 
ing given us the Jewish canon, he says, " Hie prologus scriptu- 
rarum, quasi Galeatum principium omnibus libris quas de He- 
braeo vertimus in Latinum convenire potest : ut scire valeamus 
quicquid extra hos est, inter Apocrypha esse ponendum." 
" Therefore/' he adds, " Wisdom, which is vulgarly attributed 
to Solomon, and the booh of Jesus, the son of Sirach, and Judith, 
and Tobias, and Pastor, are not in the canon. " His testimony 
in relation to the Maccabees, is equally divided. In the pro- 
logue to his Commentary on Jeremiah, he declines explaining 
the book of Baruch, which in the edition of the LXX is com- 
monly joined with it, because the Jews rejected it from the 
canon, and he of course knew of no authority for inserting it. 
In the preface to his translation of Daniel, he assures us that 
the story of Susannah, the Song of the Three Children, and the 
Fables of Bel and the Dragon, are not only not in the Jewish 
copies, but had exposed Christians to ridicule for the respect 
which they paid to them. In his preface to Tobit and Judith 
he pronounces them Apocryphal ! 

Here, then, about the close of the fourth century, we find no 
remnant of any unwritten tradition from Christ and his apostles, 
authorizing the Church to receive these books. The early fa- 
thers followed in the footsteps of the Jews, and unanimously 
concurred in receiving no other canon of the Old Testament as 
inspired, but that which came down to them through the Jewish 
Church. In this opinion, learned men in every age have con- 
curred, up to the very meeting of the Council of Trent. We 
refer to such men as Cardinal Ximenes, Ludovicus Vives, the 
accomplished Erasmus, and Cardinal Cajetan. How could 
there have been such a general concurrence in an error so de- 
plorable, if Christ and his apostles had ever treated these books 
as the lively oracles of God ? Surely there would have been 
some record — some hint — of a fact so remarkable* We ask the 



APPENDIX. 345 

Romanist to reconcile the testimonies of the Fathers with the 
decree of Trent. In the language of Bishop Burnet : " Here 
we have four centuries clear for our canon, in exclusion of all 
additions. It were easy to carry this much further down, and 
to show that these books (the Apocrypha) were never by any 
express definition received into the canon, till it was done at 
Trent, and that in all ages of the church, even after they came 
to be much esteemed, there were divers writers, and those gene- 
rally the most learned of their time, who denied them to be a 
part of the canon. 

3. The third argument which we shall bring forward is 
drawn from the books themselves. In reading them we not 
only are struck with the absence of that " heavenliness of mat- 
ter, efficacy of doctrine, majesty of style, concert of all the parts, 
and general scope of the whole to give glory to God," by which 
the sacred Scriptures abundantly evidence themselves to be the 
word of God, but we are as forcibly struck with defects utterly 
inconsistent with these excellences. To say nothing of their 
silly and ridiculous stories, these books notoriously contain 
palpable lies, gross anachronisms, flat contradictions, and doc- 
trinal statements, wholly irreconcilable with what we are taught 
in the unquestioned oracles of God. Such things are totally 
inconsistent with the idea of inspiration. 

It would be easy to make good these charges by citations 
from the books, but it is unnecessary to protract our article by 
quotations which have again and again been made for the same 
purpose. 

What, under the present head, we wish particularly to re- 
mark, is, that these books, or at least several of them, virtually 
disclaim all pretensions to inspiration. They do not profess to 
be the word of God, and why should Protestants be blamed for 
not conceding to them an authority which they themselves do 
not claim? They come to us from their authors merely as 
human productions — we treat them as such, and yet we are 
consigned to the damnation of hell, because we do not believe 
that a writer was inspired, when he did not believe it himself! 

The author of the second book of Maccabees professes to have 
abridged a work of Jason of Cyrene, and concerning his perform- 

16 



346 APPENDIX. 

ance, he holds the following language, which can be reconciled 
with a belief on his part that he was inspired, when light is made 
to have fellowship with darkness, and God with Belial, and not 
till then : — " Therefore, to us that have taken upon us this pain- 
ful labor of abridging, it was not easy, but a matter of sweat and 
watching, even as it is no ease to him that prepareth a banquet, 
and seeketh the benefit of others ; yet for the pleasing of many, 
we will undertake gladly this great pains, leaving to the author 
the exact handling of every particular, and laboring to follow the 
rules of an abridgment," &,c. (2 Mac. ii. 26, seq.) Here his 
motives, as assigned by himself, are such as induce ordinary men 
to write, and his method is taken from the common rules of crit- 
icism. In other words, it is obviously a human composition, and 
was intended to have no more authority than any other historical 
document. To the same purport is the following sentence near 
the close of the book : " And if I have done well, and as is fitting 
the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, 
it is that which I could attain unto." Is this the language of a 
man who " spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost?" Does 
he seem to have drawn from the inexhaustible fountain of Divine 
truth, or from the shallow resources of his own mind ? Verilv, 
none but a madman could speak on this wise, and yet believe 
that he was inspired of God, The prologue to Ecclesiasticus — 
a production of Jesus the Son of Sirach — is just as decisive in 
reference to it. As it is too long to quote, we shall content 
ourselves by simply referring to it. The writer asks pardon for 
a defective interpretation of a Hebrew document, and declares 
that his whole performance was the result of diligence and tra- 
vail, of great watchfulness and skill. And yet, according to the 
Romanist, instead of being the product of human thought and 
labor, it was the supernatural dictation of the Holy Ghost. The 
pretence in this case is too absurd for argument. In the first 
book of Maccabees, we are assured that there was not a prophet 
or inspired man in Israel to direct them what to do with the al- 
tar which had been profaned. (1 Mac. iv. 46.) The same decla- 
ration is repeated in the course of the book again, and yet, con- 
trary to his own testimony, we are required to believe that the 
writer himself was inspired. In fact, it was the universal opin- 



APPENDIX. 347 

ion of the Jewish nation, that inspiration ceased with Malachi, 
not to be revived until the dawn of the new dispensation, and 
that, consequently, no books which were written after the time 
of Artaxerxes Longimanus were worthy of any credit as inspired 
records. 

We might go over each of the Apocryphal books, one by one, 
and produce such numerous instances of falsehood, error, con- 
tradiction, and absurdity, as to render it utterly impossible that 
any should attribute them to God but those whose credulity is 
enormous enough to swallow down the nonsense and blasphemy 
of transubstantiation, and to believe that God can be multiplied 
by the million without disturbing His unity, and made at will, 
out of cakes and wine, without detracting from His glory. Such 
men can believe any thing, and to such men it is useless to urge 
the authority of Christ and his apostles — vain to allege the con- 
curring testimony of the leading writers of the primitive church — 
vainer still to plead absurdity, contradiction and lies, and even 
implied disclaimers from the writings in question : they have an 
authority higher than all these. The Council of Trent has spo- 
ken — the man of sin and the son of perdition, who has given out 
that he is God, has spoken from his throne of blasphemy and 
abominations; and the voice of a general council and the Pope 
is enough to silence reason, to sanctify blasphemy, and to canon- 
ize falsehood. 

But to those who are not yet fastened as captives to the car 
of Rome, we appeal in the confident expectation of success. 
Can any candid and unprejudiced mind believe that these books 
proceeded from God, when there is not a particle of evidence to 
establish the fact — when the Jewish church, to which were com- 
mitted the Oracles of God, rejected them — when Christ and 
his Apostles rejected them — when for four centuries united 
Christendom rejected them — when up to the very time of the 
meeting of Trent, the most enlightened members of the church 
of Rome rejected them — when, in addition to all this, the books 
themselves do not profess to be inspired, and abound in absurd- 
ity, contradiction and lies ? Despising the authority of Popes 
and Councils, we bring the matter to the bar of sober reason and 
sound argument, and we challenge Rome to vindicate herself 
from the charge of intolerable arrogance and blasphemy in her 



348 APPENDIX. 

corrupt additions to the word of God. The argument which she 
uses with her own vassals will not do among thinking men. Until 
she can adduce clear, decided, unanswerable proof of the inspi- 
ration of the Apocrypha, all who reverence God or love their race, 
are solemnly bound to reject these books, and to treat them pre- 
cisely as all Protestant churches always have treated them. 
Rome may denounce her anathema against us, but we know full 
well that the terrible malediction of God rests upon her. It is 
not a light matter whether we receive or reject these writings. 
If they are not inspired, those who receive them run the risk of 
everlasting damnation — if they are, those who reject them are 
exposed to the same danger. 

That Protestants reject them because they contain unpalata- 
ble doctrines, is a fiction of the Roman Priesthood to divert at- 
tention from the real state of the argument. Light is death to 
their cause, and therefore they resort to every trick of sophistry 
and of falsehood to obscure the question at issue, and to escape 
unexposed in their frauds and impostures. We reject them be- 
cause they are not inspired, and we shall continue to do so until 
the contrary is clearly proved, as well as boldly asserted. Let 
the Romanist come up manfully to the point of inspiration — that 
is the issue between us, and upon that issue we are always ready 
to meet them. 



LETTER I. 

To the Reverend James H. Thornwell, Professor of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity, fyc. 

Reverend Sir, I need offer no apology for thus publicly address- 
ing you. The Columbia Chronicle of the 15th ult., forwarded 
tome a few weeks ago by a friend, contains an article under your 
name on what you term the Apocryphal Books, which at my request 
the Editors of the Miscellany republish together with this letter. 
The character of that article is such as to render it no longer an 
intrusion either on you or on the public thus to vindicate the 
Catholic church from your attacks. 

Permit me to take this occasion of expressing, once for all, 
my regret at finding an essay from you so plentifully interspersed 



APPENDIX. 349 

with the vulgar epithets papist, Romanist, and such manifestations 
of ill feeling as the expressions vassals of Rome and captives to 
the car of Rome, the assertion that * our credulity is enormous/ 
and your mocking language concerning the awful mystery of 
transubstantiation and the church, with which even in quotation 
I am unwilling to sully my pen. Believe me, Reverend Sir, 
such invectives contain no argument. They are unbecoming 
the subject, and, may I presume to add, the dignified station you 
occupy. Your essay would have lost none of its weight, and to 
Catholics would have-been infinitely less revolting, had they 
been omitted. Catholics are neither outcasts from society nor 
devoid of feeling ; they are neither insensible to, nor think they 
deserve, such words of opprobrium. It is true we have often to 
draw on our patience, for the rules of courtesy are frequently 
violated in our regard. Still it is painful to see a Professor 
descending from calm, gentlemanly and enlightened argument, 
to mingle with the crowd of those whose weapons are misrepre- 
sentations and abuse. To me it is doubly painful when such 
language obliges me not to respect as highly as I would desire 
those whom I address. I will not recur to this disagreeable top- 
ic, but will endeavor to write as if your arguments were unac- 
companied by what Catholics must consider as insults. 

I cordially agree with you that ' it is not alight matter wheth- 
er we receive or reject those writings' which are contained in the 
canon of the holy Scriptures as received by the Catholic church, 
and are excluded from that generally adopted by the different de- 
nominations of Protestantism. Still I am not prepared to unite 
unconditionally in your denunciatory clauses. Undoubtedly all 
who know the truth, are bound to believe and profess it; other- 
wise they ' run the risk of eternal damnation.' All too are 
bound, according to their ability, sincerely, earnestly^and perse- 
veringly to seek the truths of revelation on this as on all other 
points ; and those who, having the means, neglect to do so, ' are 
exposed to the same danger. 5 Still there may be others to whom 
Divine Providence has not vouchsafed such means ; and they as- 
suredly will not be punished for not performing an impossibility. 

Your essay contains some preliminary remarks on the author- 
ity of the church to declare what books are sacred and canonical, 



350 APPENDIX. 

and on the state of the question ; and lays down three arguments 
to prove that the books in question are not inspired. I shall 
take up these different heads in order, and trust, by a few remarks 
in this and perhaps two or three other letters, to convince a ' can- 
did and unprejudiced mind by sound argument and sober reason/ 
that the Catholic church has not been guilty of the heinous crime 
you lay at her door, that of making corrupt additions to the word 
of God. 

You commence with the following remarks : 

" In nothing is the intolerable arrogance of the church of 
Rome more strikingly displayed, than in the authority, which if 
she does not formally claim, yet she pretends to exercise, of dis- 
pensing the Holy Ghost not merely to men themselves but also 
to their writings. Thus the famous Council of Trent has at- 
tempted to make that divine which is notoriously human, and 
that inspired which, in the sense of the apostle, is notoriously of 
' private interpretation.' We allude, of course, to the conduct 
of Rome in placing the Apocrypha upon an equal footing with 
the sacred oracles of God. Among the books which the ' holy 
oecumenical and general Council of Trent, lawfully assembled 
in the Holy Spirit' has declared should be received with equal 
piety and veneration with the unquestioned word of God, and 
which indeed have God for their author, are Tobit, Judith, the 
additions to the book of Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus , Baruch 
with the Epistle of Jeremiah, the songs of the three children, the 
story of Susannah, the story of Bel and the Dragon, and the first 
and second books of Maccabees. 

" Having by«ts own authority constituted these books a part 
of the word of God, the Holy Council proceeded to pronounce its 
usual malediction upon all who would not receive them as sacred 
and canonical. " 

I doubt not, Reverend Sir, you here accurately express your 
conception of what the Council of Trent did in regard to the 
Scriptures. But your terms express neither the belief of Catho- 
lics nor the action of the Council. A Canon I have always un- 
derstood to be a list or a catalogue, setting forth what books are 
inspired, not giving or dispensing inspiration to uninspired 
books. A work to be entitled to place in a canon must be be- 



APPENDIX. 351 

lieved already inspired; and if believed to be inspired at any one 
period it must be believed to have been always inspired. Until 
a canon is formed, a catalogue of inspired works drawn up, man- 
ifestly though many works may be sacred because inspired, none 
can be canonical, because none can be inserted in a catalogue 
which does not yet exist. He who forms a canon must naturally 
first decide what books are and what are not inspired. Did the 
council of Trent in making such a decision ' display intolerable 
arrogance?' Reverend Sir, your essay claims to contain a de- 
cision on that point, which according to the rules and maxims 
of Protestantism proceeds from your own authority to decide 
for yourself, and for which you alone are responsible. If you 
alone, and the fathers of Trent together, are equally qualified to 
make that decision, then must the same terms which you apply 
to them, be applicable to yourself. If on the contrary any one 
should think you personally inferior to them in the qualifications 
of learning and research on this point, then, unless charity and 
courtesy forbid him, as certainly they do me, must he look for 
expressions, if possible, more bitter and harsh than your own. I 
presume, however, that the ardor with which you engaged in the 
contest, blinded your eyes to the fact, that while you made your 
very first thrust at the Council, you fatally exposed yourself to 
the retort. 

We believe that the church of Christ will ever know, and be- 
lieve, and teach his doctrines and precepts ; that He has secured 
to her the possession of the truths of his revelation through the 
ministry of that body of pastors, of which the apostles were the 
first members, and whom he appointed his delegates and sent 
forth to ' baptize all nations, teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever he had taught them/ guaranteeing at the same time 
that he would be with them in the performance of this duty all 
days, even to the consummation of the world. He promised 
them the Spirit of truth who should teach them all truth. Hence 
we hold that the apostles and their successors in the ministry in 
the first and second, and in every succeeding century, have taught 
and will continue to the end of the world to teach all things that 
He taught them originally ; and when they testify that any doc- 
trine is one of those originally taught by the Saviour, and hand- 



352 APPENDIX. 

ed down to them by their predecessors in the ministry, we feel 
bound to hear them, His delegated teachers, as we would hear 
Him, from whom they received their authority, and we, the assur- 
ance that He is with them, and teaches through them. 

I will not, Reverend Sir, enter at large on the general proofs 
on this point. I might show that our doctrine is fully sustained 
by the words of the Saviour himself, that it has ever been recog- 
nized and acted on from the earliest days of Christianity, that the 
contrary is opposed to reason and the infinite wisdom of God, in- 
asmuch as it would ever leave us in doubt and indecision, and as 
only through it can all learn, with that certainty which is requir- 
ed for an unhesitating assent of reason, what doctrines have been 
in truth revealed by the Saviour. To attempt to establish all this 
would be to depart too far from the subject I have undertaken 
to treat. I will consider it simply in reference to the canon of 
Scripture, and hope to show that the authority claimed by the 
Catholic Church of determining the canon, that is, of authorita- 
tively declaring what books have been committed to her care by 
the apostles as inspired, and have ever been revered as such, so 
far from being a ' striking display of intolerable arrogance/ must 
be admitted, if the Christian world generally is to possess any 
certainty of divine inspiration. 

In the first place it seems strange to me that you should so 
severely condemn the Catholic church for having presumed to 
draw up a canon. It is nothing more than many denominations 
of Protestants, your own, Rev. sir, included, have done. In the 
thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England and of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal church in the United States, in the Articles of the 
Methodist Episcopal church, and in the Westminster Confes- 
sion of the Presbyterians, we find canons of the Scriptures. 
Nothing is more natural than that several Ecclesiastical bodies, 
as these denominations are, should give forth to its members and 
the world, through what each according to its peculiar polity 
recognizes as its proper tribunal, decisions on this all-important 
point. In the Catholic, church, a general council is deemed a 
proper tribunal, and when circumstances required it, the Catholic 
church through such a tribunal gave her declaration. I am not 
now speaking of the accuracy of the decision, but of the ' author- 



APPENDIX. 353 

ity exercised ' in making it. In styling it ' a striking display of 
intolerable arrogance,' you strike a blow which harms us not, but 
recoils with tenfold force on your own denomination. Surely, if 
the persons assembled at Westminster could draw up a canon or 
catalogue of what they were of opinion should be received and 
acknowledged by all as inspired books, the Catholic church 
could through her bishops assembled in council declare too what 
books had ever been handed down in her bosom as the word of 
God. If it was no arrogance in the first to put forth a decree, 
which was valueless, because on their own principles it bound 
no one and which every member of your communion has a right 
to reform, and which some to my own knowledge do reform ; it 
was certainly none in the Catholic church to pronounce a decree 
which circumstances required, and which her children through- 
out the world felt had some weight. You might contend that 
the Catholic church has no commission from God to make such 
decisions, that Catholics err, when they believe them to possess 
some value. That would be attacking our doctrine. But it 
strikes me as strange that this particular exercise of authority 
should be singled out for condemnation by a divine of a church 
which, without even claiming this commission or this authority 
for its decrees, has nevertheless performed the same act. One 
who rejects as uninspired the Canticle of Canticles, and if we 
may believe a recent writer in the Magnolia, there are many 
biblical scholars in this country who do, must look on the decla- 
ration of the Westminster Confession, that that book is inspired, 
as at least an equally striking display of intolerable arrogance, as 
the declaration of the Council of Trent, that the books you 
mention, were ever preserved in the church, and must still be 
held as divinely inspired. I might also say that it is not more 
arrogant to declare that a contested book is divinely inspired, 
than that a contested doctrine or precept is contained in the 
Scripture. And yet we need not go back many months to find 
your Assembly declaring this last, and enforcing its declaration 
under penalty of suspension from the ministry and exclusion 
from your sacrament. I press this view farther than perhaps 
seems necessary ; but your article, like most articles written 
against us, breathes a spirit, which I will not qualify, but which 

16* 



354 APPENDIX, 

would exclude the Catholic church from that right Protestants 
boast God has given to all men, — to believe in religious matters, 
according to our own judgment, and to declare what she holds true. 

With these remarks on the performance of the act, let us pass 
on to the decision itself and its truth. I have taken exception 
to the idea of the decision conveyed by your words. Let the 
Fathers speak for themselves. 

" Sacrosancta cecumenica et generalis Tridentina Synodus, 
in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata, praesidentibus in eaiisdem 
tribus Apostolical Sedis legatis, hoc sibi perpetuo anto oculos 
proponens, ut, sublatis erroribus, puritas ipsa evangelii in ecclesia 
conservetur ; quod promissum ante per prophetas in Scripturis 
Sanctis, Dominus noster Jesus Christus Dei filius proprio ore 
primum promulgavit; deinde per suos apostolos tanquam fontem 
omnis et salutaris veritatis et morum discipline omni creaturae 
praedicari jussit : perspiciensque banc veritatem et disciplinam 
contineri in libris scriptis, et sine scripto traditionibus, quae ip- 
sius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae, aut ab ipsis Apostolis, 
Spiritu sancto dictante, quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque 
pervenerunt : orthodoxorunl Patrumexemplasecuta, omnes libros 
tarn veteris quam novi Testamenti, cum utriusque unus Deus 
sit auctor, nee non traditiones ipsas, turn ad fidem turn ad mores 
pertinentes, tanquam ore tenus a Christo, vel a Spiritu sancto 
dictatas, et continua successione in Ecclesia catholica conserva- 
tas pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur. Sa- 
crorum vero librorum indicem huic decreto adscribendum cen- 
suit; ne cui dubitatio suboriri possit, quinam sint, qui ab ipsa sy- 
nodo suscipiuntur. Sunt vero infra scripti, (here follows the list 
containing the books you object to.) Si quis autem libros ipsos 
integros cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in Ecclesia catholica 
legi consueverunt, et in veteri vulgata Latina editione habentur, 
pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit, et traditiones praedictas 
sciens et prudens contempserit; anathema sit." 

" The holy oecumenical and general Council of Trent, law- 
fully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the three aforesaid Legates 
of the Apostolic See presiding therein ; having this always in 
view, that errors being taken away, the purity of that gospel 
should be preserved in the church, which, promised by the 



APPENDIX. 355 

prophets in the Holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, first promulgated with his own mouth, and afterwards 
commanded should be preached by his apostles to every creature, 
as the source of every saving truth and moral discipline; and 
clearly seeing that this truth and discipline is contained in the 
written books, and in the unwritten traditions, which, received 
by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the 
Apostles themselves, dictated by the Holy Ghost to them, have 
come down even to us, delivered as it were from hand to hand ; 
following the example of the orthodox Fathers, receives with 
due piety and reverence, and venerates, all the books, as well 
of the Old as of the New Testament, since one God is the au- 
thor of both, and also those traditions appertaining to faith and 
morals, which have been held in the Catholic church in con- 
tinued succession, as coming from the mouth of Christ, or 
dictated by the Holy Ghost. It has moreover thought proper to 
annex to this decree a catalogue of the Sacred Books, lest any 
doubt might arise, which are the books received by this Council . 
They are the following (here follows the list, containing the 
books to which entirely or in part you object). Now, if any one 
does not receive as sacred and canonical those books, entire 
with all their parts, as they have been usually read in the Catho- 
lic church, and are found in the old Latin vulgate edition ; and 
shall knowingly and industriously contemn the aforesaid tradi- 
tions, let him be anathema." Sessio quarta celebrata die viii. 
Mens April, MDXLVL 

This decree, you perceive, Rev. Sir, treats of the inspired 
Scriptures and the unwritten traditions. Your essay takes up 
the first topic : 1 leave the second, then, without any remark. 

From this document it appears at first glance that the Coun- 
cil desired to draw up for the use of the faithful a canon or 
catalogue of the inspired Books, and that they inserted therein 
hose works which they were convinced had ever been looked up- 
on by the universal church as sacred and inspired. It is a doc- 
trine of our church, sustained by the arguments at which I have 
hinted above, that Almighty God has promised never to permit 
error, under such circumstances, to be taught instead of truth. 
Hence the Council looked upon that decree as decisive, and as 



356 APPENDIX. 

such it has been and is received by the Catholic church through- 
out the world. Were any Catholic to refuse, he would be sepa- 
rated from her communion. She would no longer recognise 
in him a sheep of her own true fold : before the tribunal of God, 
he would stand or fall, according as in his own conscience he 
was really more or less guilty or innocent of a violation of His 
supreme commands. This is the meaning of the phrase bor- 
rowed from the Scripture, anathema sit, let him be anathema, 
and used in every age of Christianity. You yourself, Rev. sir, 
have gone as far as you charge the Fathers with going, when 
you say, that if the books in question are uninspired, those who 
receive them "run the risk of eternal damnation." In your 
essay you declare that they are uninspired. The application is 
obvious. 

Hallam, a Protestant writer, in his Introduction to the Liter- 
attire of Europe, has the following passage. " No general 
council ever contained so many persons of eminent learning and 
ability as that of Trent : nor is there ground for believing that 
any other investigated the questions before it with so much 
patience, acuteness, temper, and desire of truth, " I might 
quote from Roscoe and other Protestants, who were somewhat 
au fait with the continental Catholic literature of that period, 
similar, if not stronger, testimonies in their favor. Considering 
their^decree concerning the Scriptures, apart from the religious 
value with which the doctrine of the Catholic church invests it, 
I cannot think it deserves to be treated with such unceremonious 
disrespect as your essay exhibits. Hundreds of the most learned 
men in Europe, after patient examination and a thorough inves- 
tigation of all the evidence they could find on the subject, 
decide unanimously that a certain fact took place ; for, on their 
own showing, the decree is based on such a decision. You, 
Rev. sir, think they were mistaken. Still, as literary opponents, 
you should feel they are no despicable adversaries. If it pleases 
you, as a divine, to consider them as a religious body, you see 
the most venerable, learned, and zealous pastors of a church, 
numbering 150,000,000 in the fold, assembling together, that 
by mutual advice, after due consultation, and earnest, persever- 
ing prayer, they may be enlightened by Him, whose ministers 



APPENDIX. 357 

they hold themselves to be, so as faithfully to instruct on a most 
important point, the multitudes that look to them for guidance 
in the way of eternal salvation. If I could believe that, notwith- 
standing, they fell into error; while I lamented it, I would still 
respect, revere them. I would often turn to that assembly, as a 
scene on which a Christian soul should love to dwell, and learn 
from them earnest zeal and fervent piety. 

The question between us is, did they fall into error or not? 

You remark that the onus probandi lies on us, and that the pre- 
sumption is against the inspiration of those books you combat, 
until satisfactory evidence be brought forward to prove that 
point. This, Rev. Sir, is true, not only in reference to those 
books, but to all others, which it may be contended are inspired. 
Defect of such proof would be fatal to the cause of any book. 

Now I ' assert and shall endeavor to prove,' that the only ar- 
guments which establish the inspiration of those books which you 
admit are inspired, in that manner, and to the extent which com- 
mon sense and the nature of Christianity require that it should 
be proved, will also establish the inspiraton of the books you re- 
pudiate; and that if these are to be rejected, because of the in- 
sufficiency of those arguments in their support, the others must 
be at least generally rejected ; the conclusive arguments, at least, 
for the generality of Christians, being, as I shall show, identi- 
cally the same in both cases. 

I need not say that the question, what writings are divinely 
inspired, has not been debated only within this and the last two 
centuries. There has ever been great difference on this head 
among those who professed to hold a revelation from Almighty 
God. The Sadducees and the Samaritans rejected all the books 
of the Old Testament, except those of Moses. The Nazarenes, 
on the other hand, rejected the Pentateuch. The Simonians, the 
Basilidians, the Marcionists, with the Manicheans, the Patricians, 
the Severians, the Albigenses, and some others, rejected the en- 
tire Old Testament. Many others have rejected various books. 
Nor has the New Testament escaped a similar fate. The four 
gospels were rejected by the Manicheans ; each book had its 
impugners, down to the Apocalypse or book of Revelations, 
which you well know was rejected by many, who were, and are 



:J58 APPENDIX. 

still, accounted to have been orthodox. The Rationalists of Ger- 
many would smile with contempt and pity on the delusion, which 
in the effulgence of their philosophical Christianity would believe 
in any supernatural aid given to the scriptural writers. The 
deist among ourselves denies altogether the inspiration of the 
Bible. Nay, according to the principles you lay down, there is 
a time when every Protestant must doubt it. You are not, you 
say, at * liberty to believe,' the books you attack, to be inspired, 
' until clear and decided proofs of the fact are brought forward.' 
Neither on the same ground is any Protestant ' at liberty to be- 
lieve any documents to be inspired,' but is solemnly bound to 
' treat them as he treats all other writings, merely as human pro- 
ductions, until clear and cogent arguments for their divine origin 
are submitted to his understanding.' I think it important that 
this high 'vantage ground,' to use your own expression in the 
argument on this subject, ' should be fully apprehended;' for in 
order to meet your preamble more directly, I will base on it the 
following remarks, which I offer to your serious consideration 
and that of those whose sense of equity or whose curiosity may 
lead them to examine what a Catholic can say on the subject. 

We cannot be called on to believe any proposition not sus- 
tained by adequate proof. When Almighty God deigned to 
inspire the works contained in the Holy Scriptures, he intended 
they should be held and believed to be inspired. Therefore there 
does exist some adequate proof of their inspiration. The nature 
and scheme of Christianity requires that not one only in a thou- 
sand, but all those to whom Christianity is properly announced, 
of whatsoever age or condition they be, should believe it. There- 
fore, that proof of inspiration is adapted to all those ages and con- 
ditions, must be one which will strike the understanding of the 
wandering Indian and the unlettered negro slave, as clearly and 
as cogently as that of the enlightened Professor. 

Now, Rev. Sir, there may be many ways of seeking to 
ascertain the fact of the inspiration of any writer or writers. 
They may, however, be all reduced to the four following 
methods : — 

1. Is every man, no matter what be his condition, to investi- 
gate by his own labor and research, and duly examine the argu- 



APPENDIX. «]59 

merits that have been or can be alleged for and against the sev- 
eral books, which it is asserted are inspired; and on the strength 
of that examination to decide for himself with absolute certainty 
what books are and what are not inspired ? 

2. Is every individual to receive books as inspired, or to re- 
ject them as uninspired, according to the decision of persons he 
esteems duly qualified by erudition and sound judgment to deter- 
mine that question accurately ? 

3. Must we learn the inspiration of the Scriptures from some 
individual, whom God commissioned to announce this fact to the 
world ? 

4. Must he learn it from a body of individuals, to whom in their 
collective capacity, God has given authority to make an unerring 
decision on this subject? 

I might perhaps add a fifth method; that each one be in- 
formed what books are divinely inspired by his private spirit. 
But I omit it as, were it true, it would be superfluous, if not a 
criminal intrusion on the province God would have reserved to 
himself, to attempt to prove or disapprove, when our duty would 
be simply to await in patience this revelation to every particular 
individual. You are not a member of the Society of Friends, 
and your essay is not an expose of the teaching of your private 
spirit, but an effort to appeal to argument. 

To some one of those four methods, every plan of proving 
the inspiration of the Scriptures can be reduced. You for your- 
self use the first : appealing to the testimonies of antiquity in 
support of your proposition, and to arguments from seeming in- 
ternal imperfections. One who would rest satisfied with your 
dissertation, believing that your erudition and judgment must 
lead you to a sufficient acquaintance with those testimonies and 
to the proper decision thereon, and who would consequently 
seek nothing more, but unhesitatingly embrace your conclusion, 
would be using the second. The third is plain of itself. The 
fourth, that sustained by Catholics, " you despise." 

Rev. Sir, you admit that there do exist divinely inspired writ- 
ings, and that Almighty God requires individuals of every na- 
tion, clime, and condition to receive them as inspired. Those 
individuals are "solemnly bound" to reject that inspiration, to 



300 APPENDIX. 

" treat those works as they treat all other writings, merely as 
human productions, — "of no more authority than Seneca's Let- 
ters or Tully's Offices" — (if they ever heard of them) — " until 
clear and cogent arguments for their divine origin are submitted 
to their understandings" — " until they are proved to be inspired." 
You are forced, therefore, to allow that God has provided such 
proof, suited to the capacity of all those individuals ; and which, 
when within their reach, He requires them to use. That proof must 
be found in the use of some one of the four above-mentioned methods. 

Let us examine them severally, and see which is in truth 
suited to the means and intelligence of men of every condition. 

I Is every man, no matter what be his condition and means, 
capable of investigating by his own labor and research, and duly 
examining the arguments, that have been or can be alleged for 
and against the several books which it is asserted are inspired ; 
and on the strength of that examination, of deciding for himself, 
with absolute certainty and unerring accuracy, what books are, 
and what are not inspired ? This question, methinks, need not 
be asked a second time. 

The arguments in this course would be of two classes, ex- 
ternal and internal ; either or both of which would form matter 
for investigation. He might seek, as you have endeavored to 
do, whether there exists a sufficient mass of testimony to estab- 
lish the fact or facts, that God did at certain times, and on cer- 
tain occasions, exercise over particular writers the supernatural 
influence of inspiration ; or, from a consideration of the perfec- 
tion of the Scriptures, he might conclude that they were above 
the power of unaided men, and therefore must be of divine 
origin. To perform the first properly, he must be deeply versed 
in the Latin, the Greek, and the Hebrew, perhaps too, in several 
modern languages; must have at his command a more extensive 
library than, I believe, Charleston can boast of; must spend 
consequently many long years of study in acquiring those lan- 
guages and obtaining authors, in searching out the thousand 
and one testimonies scattered through a hundred musty tomes, 
and in acquiring that thorough knowledge of times, of men, of 
writings, which will enable him to judge of the credibility of 
those witnesses — must finally possess an unrivalled, almost super- 



APPENDIX. 361 

natural accuracy of judgment, to reconcile this mass of conflict- 
ing statements, and distinguishing which are worthy and which 
unworthy of credit — to conclude confidently and evidently in 
favor of or against the inspiration of the books examined. Tlie 
second requires a thorough acquaintance with the Scriptures in 
the original Hebrew, Greek, and Chaldean, and in the ancient 
versions in Samaritan, Copht, Arabic, Syriac, Greek, and Latin, 
and with the ancient manuscripts ; and the ability to apply to all 
this the subtle rules of refined criticism, in order to determine, 
in the first place, as far as can be ascertained, the exact lan- 
guage and meaning of the sacred writers; a thorough knowledge 
of the abilities and acquirements of each writer and the state of 
science, and already revealed religion in his country and age, in 
order to see to what extent of perfection his own powers with 
such aids could naturally carry him ; the faculty also of duly 
appreciating the beauties of the sacred writings, and that know- 
ledge of chemistry, of natural history, of geology, of the history 
of nations, and of almost every science, which may enable him 
fully and satisfactorily to refute all the objections brought from 
these different sources against the intrinsic truth, and conse- 
quently internal evidence, of the divine inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures. Need I say, it is all important he should be able to pos- 
sess and peruse the books on whose inspiration he is thus to 
decide ? 

Whether any investigation in either or both classes, carried 
on even under the most favorable circumstances, will unerringly 
prove the inspiration of any books of the Scripture, 1 leave to be 
mooted by those who choose to undertake the task. The Editors 
of the Miscellany have lately published several articles on the 
subject, under the head, Protestant evidence of the inspiration of 
Scripture. For my immediate purpose, it is enough to ask you 
and my readers to reflect for one moment on the past and present 
condition of the vast majority of those millions who call them- 
selves Christians; whom God requires to receive the Scriptures, 
and who consequently have " clear and cogent arguments for 
their Divine origin." Is it not notorious, the great, the over- 
whelming majority of Christians have ever been and must con- 
tinue incapacitated by their position in the world, their want of 



362 APPENDIX. 

time, of learning, of means, from even attempting such an inves- 
tigation ? Was it not, for ages before the discovery of the art of 
printing, morally impossible, on account of the labor and tedious- 
ness of copying such volumes with the pen, their consequent 
scarcity, and the enormous price at which alone they could be 
procured, for most individuals to obtain even copies of the Holy 
Scriptures themselves, much more of those works necessary for 
such an examination ? Not to leave our own state, are not more 
than one-half of her population debarred by law from learning to 
read? Of the 550,000 souls in South Carolina, think you there 
are 550 or even 50, who have time, the means, the ability, the 
opportunity of devoting themselves to this laborious task ? 

If every individual is bound to reject the inspiration of a 
book, until it is clearly and evidently proved to his mind to be 
inspired, and if such proof can only be obtained through that 
personal examination, then must the negro and the Indian, and 
the poor and the unlettered, and the daily laborer toiling from 
sun-rise to sun-set for his bread, then must the overwhelming 
majority of Christians reject the Scriptures ; then were ail those, 
who, deprived of worldly learning, looked in their simplicity to 
God for saving wisdom, and fondly believed they possessed it in 
those sacred oracles of truth — I tremble to follow the awful train 
of thought. Rev. Sir, the Jirst cannot be the method appointed by 
Almighty God, whereby all should learn with unerring accuracy 
the inspiration of the Scriptures. Let us take up the second. 

II. Is every individual to receive books as inspired, or to re- 
ject them as uninspired, according to the decision of persons he 
esteems sufficiently qualified by erudition and sound judgment 
to determine that question accurately ? I apprehend a candid 
mind can easily answer this question. 

Is such a course adapted to all Christians? Would it lead 
them with unerring accuracy to the truth? If it be the means 
appointed by Almighty God, both questions must be answered in 
the affirmative. If common sense and experience show that either 
or both must be answered negatively, it is not. 

Those who possess not learning themselves, can seldom or 
never form a proper estimate of the learning and critical judg- 
ment of a truly erudite person whom perhaps they have scarcely 



APPENDIX. 363 

looked on. Whole communities may be deceived on this point. 
Need I cite the case of Voltaire, once extolled by France and the 
soi-disant Philosophers of Europe as a very Briareus of Erudi- 
tion, and now that in France Religion and Science happily go 
hand in hand, and execrations of Vinfame are no longer passports 
to celebrity, justly derided as a puny puffed-up smatterer? The 
individual thus seeking the light of others, (besides surrendering 
his Protestant privilege of judging for himself, and pinning his 
faith to their sleeves.) is in most cases unable to judge with cer- 
tainty and accuracy on the sufficiency of the qualifications of 
those learned persons, frequently of that single individual, within 
his limited circle of knowledge. Of the learned in other lands, 
and of their decisions, he knows nothing. Even did he, you are 
aware every variety of decisions would be offered him. I cannot 
be brought to believe, and I am sure you will not ask me to be- 
lieve, that all erudition and sound judgment is confined to Ger- 
many, Holland, Great Britain, the United States, Denmark, and 
Sweden, and is there parcelled out among those who may chance 
to agree with you in your list of inspired books. I cannot be- 
lieve, for example, that our lamented Bishop, for whom our tears 
yet flow, was either unsound in judgment or deficient in erudition. 
Not to speak of esteemed friends, who, if I err not, are yet un- 
willing to admit any inspired work, I know many Catholics in 
the United States, whose talents and years of study render them, 
as they rendered him, the ornaments of the community in which 
they move. I believe that " La belle France " and sunny Italy 
produce many champions who press forward to the van in the 
cause of science. I know it is the custom of some to rail against 
those countries as buried in ignorance and darkness, at least in 
matters of religion. But such language ever recalls forcibly to 
my mind the fable of the ant, who, till perchance she wandered 
forth from her hill, thought nothing could be perfect on earth 
but what met her limited vision within a few yards of her home. 
Were you, Rev. Sir, to devote a leisure hour or so to examining 
the biography of those prelates who assisted at the Council of 
Trent, and whose authority and decisions you so heartily " des- 
pise/' you would find them eminent and worthy of respect for 
their sincere piety and vast erudition, albeit their decision on the 
hooks of Tobit, Judith, &c, was different from yours. 



364 APPENDIX. 

If in receiving books as inspired, or not, the ignorant and 
unlearned are, according to the will of God, to abide by the de- 
cisions of those learned individuals to whom they have access, or 
whom in their simplicity they deem qualified to act as their 
guides, then must we be content to say that) God requires some 
to receive as inspired, and others to reject as uninspired, the 
same books. The second course seems impracticable. Were 
it not, it would lead to contradictory conclusions ; and therefore, 
to error. Such cannot be the means appointed by Divine wis- 
dom, whereby all the faithful shall truly learn what books of the 
Scripture are really inspired. Pass we on to the third. 

III. Did God ordain that all Christians should learn what 
Scriptures were divinely inspired, from some individual, whom 
He commissioned to announce this truth to the world ? This is 
the next inquiry which awaits us. If He did, then will the proofs 
of that commission, and the declaration so made, be such as the 
mind of every Christian of whatsoever condition can seize. 

Our Divine Saviour, taking him simply in his historical 
character, proved his commission from Heaven by miracles. 
But He left no canon or catalogue of inspired works. The 
Apostles, too, proved their Divine commission. There might be 
some discussion respecting the works attributed to them ; but 
neither did they leave a canon in their writings. But did not 
the Saviour or the Apostles leave such a canon, though unre- 
corded, to their followers, to be by them transmitted to future 
generations, and which all are bound to receive? This suppo- 
sition, besides overturning another fundamental axiom of Protes- 
tants, that all things necessary to be believed are recorded in the 
Scriptures, turns over the question to method the first, which I 
have already disposed of. 

After the time of the Apostles, we know of no one who 
claimed and proved an extraordinary commission from God to 
establish a canon of Scripture. 

Before the coming of Christ, Esdras is said to have established 
a canon for the use of the Jewish nation. It has been disputed 
whether he did so or not ; whether he did so by his own author- 
ity, or by the authority of God; whether alone, or in conjunction 
with, and as member of, the Sanhedrim. It has been asserted, 



APPENDIX, 365 

too, that in that catalogue were originally contained books, which 
in the vicissitudes of that nation, perished in the Hebrew, and 
are consequently no longer in the Jewish canon, which consists 
only of books preserved in that language. I need not trouble you 
with my opinions on those different points. More veteran schol- 
ars than I, have found some of them insoluble enigmas. I ap- 
prehend a certain and accurate answer to them all would, at 
least, be far beyond the capacity of the majority of Christians, 
and yet this much would be indispensably necessary, if they are 
to have any Divine authority even for the Jewish canon. At all 
events, that decision of Esdras would not bear on the inspiration 
of books then unwritten, as were all the books of the New Tes- 
tament, so important to Christians, and nearly all the works, the 
inspiration of which your essay controverts. 

The third method, then, cannot be admitted; because no 
such clear unequivocal testimony of the entire number of inspired 
books, proceeding from an individual, who is evidently and un- 
doubtedly commissioned of God, exists; and because in the case 
of Esdras, the most we can say is, that the substance of the de- 
claration is tinged with doubt, while the fact that he made it, 
and his authority for doing so, cannot be ascertained by the vast 
majority of Christians. 

IV. The fourth method alone now remains, namely, that God 
has ordained that each Christian shall learn what books are in- 
spired, from a body of individuals, to whom in their collective 
capacity He has given authority to make an unerring decision on 
that point; and we find ourselves reduced to the alternative of 
either admitting this, or of saying, that while God requires all to 
believe the inspiration of the Scripture, and binds them to reject 
it unless it be clearly proved, He has left them without any such 
proof. 

Would such a method, if established, be adapted to all Chris- 
tians ? Would it lead them to truth ? 

One of such a body presenting himself to instruct a Christian 
or an infidel, would first inform him that, a number of years ago, 
a person, known by the name of Jesus Christ, appeared in Judea, 
and established a new religion. Sufficient motives of credibility 
can easily be brought forward to induce the novice to believe 



Z66 APPENDIX. 

this. He proceeds to state that Christ proved His heavenly com- 
mission to do so, by frequent, public, and manifest miracles. It 
will not require much to establish in those works certain striking 
characteristics of themselves, clearly indicative of a miraculous 
nature. Hence common sense is forced to conclude that the 
religion established by Christ was divine, springing from God 
and binding on man. So far we find nothing above or con- 
trary to the means and understanding even of an Indian or 
a negro. Our instructor then states that Christ, in order to se- 
cure the extension of his religion to every people, and its perpet- 
uation to the end of time, selected from among his followers cer- 
tain persons, who, with their successors, were, in his name, and 
by the same authority he possessed, to go forth and teach all 
nations all that he had himself taught in Judea.* Such a dele- 
gation is by means nnnatural or strange, and there could be found 
no novice, however rude and uncultivated, whose mind could not 
grasp it, and who would not be led to believe it on sufficiently 
credible testimony. The next lesson will be that the Saviour as- 
sured them that they would be opposed, that others would rise up to 
teach errors, whom he sent not, and that some of their own num- 
ber would fall away ; but that God would recall to their minds 
all things he had taught them,f that He would send them 
the Spirit of Truth, who should abide with them forever,^ and 
should teach them all truth,§ that He himself would be with 
them while fulfilling that commission, all days, even to the con- 
summation of the world, || and that the gates of hell, the fiercest 
conflicts of enemies, should never prevail against that church^} 
which he sent them to found and ever to instruct. For stronger 
and more explicit evidence of this, he might, if necessary and 
convenient, recur to certain histories written by persons who 
lived at the same time with the Saviour, and were for years in 
daily and intimate intercourse with him, who could not mistake 
such simple points, and the accuracy of whose reports is univer- 
sally acknowledged and can easily be substantiated. 

" All this/ 5 replies the novice, " my own common sense 

* Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. t John xiv. 26. t John xiv. 16, 17. 

§ John xiv. 26; xvi. 13. || Matt, xxviii. 20. If Matt. xvi. 18. 



APPENDIX. 36T 

would lead me to expect. The persecutions and errors you refer 
to, are but the natural workings of the passions of men, such as 
experience shows them in every-day life. It would be strange, 
indeed, that while men change and contradict every thing else, 
they should not seek to change and contradict God's doctrines 
and precepts too. If He willed that the religion of Christ ahould 
endure always, that is, that the doctrines He revealed should be 
ever preached and believed, the precepts He gave ever announced 
and obeyed, it was necessary to make some adequate provision 
against this error and change-seeking tendency of man. If those 
doctrines and precepts are to be learned from persons he ap- 
pointed to teach in his name and by his authority, as delegates 
whom, in virtue of the powSr given him, He sent as He was sent 
by the Father, that provision must evidently and necessarily be 
directed to preserve the purity of their teaching, to preserve that 
body of teachers, by the power of God, from error, and to make 
them, in fact, ' teach all things whatsoever he had taught them. , 
Unaided reason almost assures me, this is the course the Saviour 
would adopt. The evidence you lay before me is satisfactory 
and worthy of credit. I assent." 

The missionary would then inform his pupil, that the body 
of teachers, thus guaranteed to teach all truth, ' forever/ ' to all 
nations,' and i all days, even to the consummation of the world/ 
and consequently ever to exist and to teach, does in fact exist, 
claiming and exercising that power; that at the present day it 
consists of such individuals, of whom he is a commissioned teach- 
er. If asked, he would probably be able to point out the prede- 
cessors of those persons in the last, and every preceding age ; 
for a line of succession would have come down from the days of 
the Apostles, claiming and exercising that authority. He might 
state that 175,000,000 of every nation, from New Zealand to 
China, from Van Diemen's land to the Canadian Indians, from 
the Cape of Good Hope to- Siberia, admit and subject themselves 
to this authority ; that this immense multitude is owing to no 
sudden increase, but that millions on millions in every age have 
done the same. The novice might inquire, whether the 
predictions concerning persecutions and error had yet been ful- 
filled. In answer, the past and present persecutions might be 



368 APPENDIX. 

laid before him, and the long list of those who in various ages 
opposed the teaching of that body by every imaginable shade of 
error, but with all their efforts could never overturn or suppress 
it. 

" Truly, 55 exclaims the pupil, " the gates of hell shall never 
prevail against the Church of Christ. The existence of that body, 
its history, its claims recognized by such multitudes, would of 
themselves, had I no other motive for believing, convince me of 
all the facts I have just admitted. Were they not true, this claim 
would be unfounded, this body, subject to the fate of all human 
bodies, would have long since perished. I see whatever Christ 
taught must be true. I recognize you as his commissioned 
teacher. I believe him for his miracles ; I believe you for his 
authority. What are his doctrines, that I may receive them ? 
His precepts, that I may obey them? 55 

In all this there is nothing opposed to the nature or the pow- 
ers of any man, or to the nature of religion. The facts to which 
assent is asked, are as simple, and may be readily made as clear 
and as certain, as that there lived such a Roman as Julius Caesar, 
that he warred in Gaul, afterwards turned his arms against his 
country, overcame Pompey, and finally met his death from assas- 
sination. An appeal is made to that principle implanted in the 
human mind by its Creator, and among the earliest to be devel- 
oped, confiding reliance on the statements of others, while he 
guarantees that through his Almighty Providence, truth shall be 
stated. An infant would believe by force of that nature which 
God has given it, all I have proposed and the doctrines delivered 
in consequence, long before it would dream of asking evidence 
for authority to teach ; and when reason is sufficiently developed 
to receive motives of credibility, they are already at hand. We 
should ever bear in mind, too, that if this be the method adopted 
by Almighty God, if in reality, as the hypothesis requires, he 
speaks to that individual through this teacher, his divine grace 
will influence the mind of the novice to yield a more ready and 
firm assent than the tendency of our nature and the unaided mo- 
tives of human authority would produce. In this system, there 
is no room for that awful, but necessary, inevitable consequence 
of the axioms of Protestants, and of your own principles, that in 



APPENDIX. 369 

the life of every individual, there should be a dark void of infidel- 
ity and unbelief; from the time when, having attained the use of 
reason, he is able, and most solemnly bound before his Maker, to 
judge for himself, until the time when clear and cogent argu- 
ments for the inspiration of, at least, some one of the scriptural 
books have been laid before his mind. During that interval, be it 
long or short, an hour, a day, a month, a year, entire lustres, or 
a whole life, their inspiration is unproved to his mind, ' clear and 
cogent arguments for their divine origin are not yet submitted to 
his understanding,' and hence he is * solemnly bound' to 'treat 
them, as he treats all other writings, merely as human produc- 
tions,' ' having no more authority than Seneca's Letters, or Tully's 
Offices.' In this interval he is without an inspired Bible, and conse- 
quently cannot believe the truths of Divine Revelation, which, on 
the broad ground of Protestantism, are to be learned from the 
Scriptures alone as the inspired word of God : in one word, during 
that period, he is ' solemnly bound ' (shall I say, unless ' he runs 
the risk of everlasting damnation?') to live a perfect Infidel ! I 
know that this statement will startle many of my readers — that 
you will disavow it. I do not charge Protestants with holding 
the absurdity ; for none, as far as I know, have avowed it totidem 
verbis. I see, however, a partial admission in the practice of 
many Protestants to let their children grow up without much reli- 
gious instruction, because in future years they have to examine 
and judge for themselves. Still this conclusion, however absurd 
and awful, (as you have not advanced it, I may without infring- 
ing the rules of courtesy, add) however blasphemous, is the ne- 
cessary, unavoidable consequence of your premises. Such an in- 
ference cannot follow from truth. 

This fourth method is not repugnant to the nature of reli- 
gion : for all true religion is based on submission of the under- 
standing and the will to God, when He speaks to us himself; to 
his authorized delegates, when through them He deigns to teach. 
Had He appointed it, that body of individuals so commissioned, 
would evidently teach truth. 

The fourth method alone is therefore both practicable in the 
ordinary condition of the Christian world, and efficient. 

Does there exist a body of men clothed with this authority 

1? 



370 APPENDIX. 

guaranteed by such a divine promise from error ? Has it made 
a declaration setting forth, in pursuance of that authority, what 
works are truly inspired ? 

You, Rev. Sir, are forced to the alternative of either an- 
swering both questions in the affirmative, or of saying that the 
overwhelming majority of Christians are " solemnly bound" to 
reject the Scriptures ; and if they have admitted them, it was in 
violation of the will of God, and of their solemn duty. From 
this dilemma there is no escape. 

Were I not unwilling to take too wide a range, I might here 
develope those arguments on the subject which I referred to in the 
beginning of this letter. Those who are desirous of investiga- 
ting this question of vital importance to every sincere Christian, 
I refer to Wiseman's Lectures, an English work, and one easily 
obtained. I trust that I have said enough to show that such a 
tribunal, at least for proving the inspiration of the Scriptures, 
does, and must exist, unless we presume to tax the infinite wisdom 
of God with absurdity and contradiction. 

Which then is that body? The Pastors of the Catholic 
church claim to compose it. No other body claims that commis- 
sion. Leaving aside an appeal to the historical evidence of con- 
tinued succession from the Apostles, and other arguments bear- 
ing on the subject, common sense tells us, that if God has in- 
vested any body of individuals with such authority, that body 
cannot either be ignorant of its powers, nor disclaim them. The 
Catholic church, then, is that body. In the decree of the Coun- 
cil of Trent, the Christian world has its authorized declaration. 

But why delay for fifteen centuries and a half this necessary, 
all important proof? Why leave the world for such a length of 
time without this evidence of the inspiration of the Scripture ? 
I deny that the delay took place. In order that the sentiments 
of a community be known by those who move within its bosom, 
or have intercourse with its members, it is not necessary that 
these should assemble in a public meeting and set forth their 
opinions in a preamble and resolutions. So, too, the doctrines of 
the Catholic church can be known by the universal and concor- 
dant teaching of her pastors, even when her bishops have not 
assembled in a general council and embodied those doctrines in 



APPENDIX. 371 

a list of decrees. When general councils are held, it is, on the 
head of doctrine, merely to declare and define what doctrines 
have ever been taught and believed in the church. This is what 
the Council of Trent did on the canon of Scriptures. 

The Apostles left to the infant church those inspired works 
which Catholics now hold. They were universally used, except- 
ing perhaps in a few churches, for whose variations I shall ac- 
count when treating of your second argument. After a number 
of years, circumstances arose which led some persons to doubt 
whether the Universal Church, though she ever had and still 
continued to use them, did so, because she looked on all as in- 
spired, or some merely as pious and instructive works. Other 
works, too, were protruded as inspired, and some seemed to ob- 
tain partial circulation. An expression of the belief of the body 
of pastors was required. It was again and again given in the 
councils of Carthage and Hippo, and the decisions of Innocent 
I. and Gelasius. In these the whole body of pastors acqui- 
esced ; and for a thousand years no objection of any importance 
was made. After that period arose Protestantism. Luther and 
his followers denounced many books, not those alone you con- 
trovert, but others also which you revere as inspired, in terms 
compared to which even your essay is courteous. Some Catho- 
lics, too, seemed to think the former decision had not been suffi- 
ciently explicit; and therefore the Bishops at Trent, assisted by 
the most learned divines, canonists and scholars, after every pos- 
sible research and the fullest investigation, decided again, that 
all those books in the Catholic Bible had been handed down 
from the Apostles, had ever been held in the church as inspired, 
and should therefore be still revered as sacred and canonical. 
These different assertions I shall sustain by due authority when 
I answer your second argument. 

But many objections have been urged against the truth of 
that decision. I ask you, Rev. Sir, is there any doctrine of rev- 
elation against which many arguments have not been urged? 
Have not the very existence of God and his Unity been assail- 
ed ! Have not the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation 
of the Son, and every doctrine of Christianity been attacked? 
The fact therefore of opposition is no disproof. Nor is it ne- 



372 APPENDIX. 

cessary for the true believer to be able to answer every cavil or 
sophism. Surely the negro cannot answer, cannot even compre- 
hend, the arguments brought against the existence of God. Is he 
therefore doomed to remain an Atheist? When we know posi- 
tively and clearly that God requires us to believe a certain doc- 
trine because he declares it to be true, we are bound to obey un- 
conditionally. Common sense tells us that every objection to it 
must be based on error, even though we be unable to point it 
ont. And so too a Catholic relies on the authorized decision of 
his church concerning the inspired writings with surety, classing 
all the objections urged thereagainst, with the numberless other 
objections urged in like manner against every truth of Divine 
revelation, against the Deity himself, which, according to his 
degree of knowledge, he may or may not be able to refute, but 
which he knows by a 'priori evidence of the strongest character 
must be false. 

I trust that " a candid and unprejudiced mind" will, upon a 
mature consideration of the arguments I have brought forward, 
see that the act of the Council of Trent, so far from being a 
" striking display of intolerable arrogance/ 5 was a decision, with 
the divine authority for which, and therefore its truth, the inspi- 
ration of the Scriptures for the vast majority of Christians, and 
consequently on Protestant principles, Christianity itself must 
stand of fall. 

After thus establishing the absolute necessity of admitting 
that authority, which you impugn, and showing the frightful con- 
sequences of a contrary course — consequences, from which, I 
am certain, you will shrink — I might rest satisfied that I have ful- 
ly answered your essay and proved by clear and cogent arguments 
the inspiration of those works against which it is directed.— 
Whatever else I may say will be " over and above what is actual- 
ly required.' 5 " With the distinct understanding, then, that I am 
doing a work, which justice to our cause does not absolutely re- 
quire," but which places the truth, not in a former position but 
in a stronger light, I will proceed in my next to notice those ar- 
guments you so confidently term " irresistible.'' Meanwhile 
I remain, Rev. Sir, 

Yours, &,c. 

A. P. F. 



APPENDIX. 373 



LETTER II. 



To the Rev. James H. Thorn well, Professor of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity^ fyc. 

Rev. Sir: — In the introductory remarks to your essay, you said 
you were not required to advance a single argument against the 
books of " Tobit, Judith, the additions to the Boole of Esther , Wis- 
dom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruchivith the Epistle of Jeremiah, the Song 
of the Three Children, the Story of Susannah, the Stoi*y of Bel 
and the Dragon, and the first and second boohs of Maccabees" 
It would, at first sight, appear from your article that Catholics 
urge only the authority of the Council of Trent in behalf of the 
inspiration of those books and parts of books. You have scarcely 
given us the credit of advancing a single argument in corrobora- 
tion of the truth of that decree. " A candid and unprejudiced 
mind" would, methinks, have desired from you at least a full and 
fair statement of what reasons we do bring forward. Your po- 
sition forbids my supposing you ignorant of at least some of 
them. Still I cannot say I regret the course you have taken, 
though it is not the one I would have chosen. Every impartial, 
" thinking mind," even though he knew nothing of the Catholic 
view of the question, would see that yours is completely an ultra 
party exposition of the case, and that, before forming his deci- 
sion, common prudence requires him to hear the other side. I 
trust that my letters may fall into the hands of some such. 

In my first, I treated of the authority of the decree of the 
Council of Trent, which declared those works " sacred and ca- 
nonical;" and showed by a line of argument, which, although 
not conclusive to an infidel, must be so to every Christian, be- 
cause based on the very nature of Christianity, that in the de- 
cree itself we had clear and cogent proof of their inspiration. 
I argued thus: No man can be called on to believe what is not 
sustained by adequate proof. Hence, when God proposes any 
truth for the belief of man, he sustains it by adequate proof. His 
own Divine veracity would fully constitute that proof for the in- 
dividual to whom he speaks. For others it is necessary that the 
additional fact, that God did reveal his truth to that individual. 



374 APPENDIX. 

be also sustained by adequate proof. Nothing deserves that 
name, which cannot be learned or understood, or which, if 
learned and understood, would lead to error, or leave room for 
reasonable doubt. 

You hold that one of the truths proposed by Almighty God 
for the belief of all Christians, to whom Christianity is duly an- 
nounced, is, that certain works are inspired. Unless we betake 
ourselves to the tenets of the Society of Friends, and say that He 
declares by a special revelation or teaching of the Private Spirit 
to every individual, what books are and what are not inspired, 
(which neither of us is willing to do,) we must confess that this 
truth is one communicated to man many ages ago, and which is 
now to be believed by all those Christians of every class and con- 
dition and clime, because of that communication. Of this com- 
munication there does, therefore, there must exist adequate proof 
for all such persons. There can be but four methods of obtain- 
ing that proof, three of which we saw must be rejected, and the 
fourth consequently admitted. 

The first, a personal examination by each individual of the 
arguments, historical or intrinsic, in favor and against the in- 
spiration of the Scripture, even if such an examination would 
ever lead to a certain result, could not be admitted, because the 
overwhelming majority of Christians are prevented from institut- 
ing that examination, by the duties and the circumstances of that 
condition in which Divine Providence has placed them. The 
second, that the learned should decide for and be followed by 
the unlearned, would lead some to error, as some of the learned 
thus to be followed have decided erroneously. The third, that 
all Christians should learn what books are in reality inspired from 
some individual commissioned by Almighty God to announce 
this truth to the world, was, as we saw, untenable, for the simple 
reason that no such declaration from an individual thus commis- 
sioned, exists. We were forced, therefore, to admit the fourth, 
that all Christians should learn what books compose the divinely 
inspired Scripture from a body of individuals whom God has au- 
thorized to decide on that point, and guarantees from error in so 
deciding. We saw that this method was feasible, adapted to the 
capacity and condition of every Christian, and consonant with 



APPENDIX. 375 

the essence of religion, ijf adopted, it would certainly lead to 
truth. In one word, it alone was feasible and effective. It must, 
therefore, be admitted, unless we say that the overwhelming ma- 
jority of Christians are " solemnly bound," unless " they run the 
risk of everlasting damnation," to reject the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, and be, on Protestant principles, perfect infidels — 
unless we overturn Christianity itself. The Pastors of the Cath- 
olic Church alone claim to compose that body. They, there- 
fore, do compose it. Their decisions on the question of inspi- 
ration are guaranteed by Almighty God from error. They have 
numbered the books you controvert among the inspired Scrip- 
tures. Therefore those books are "sacred and canonical" 

I conceive that I have thus satisfactorily discharged the onus 
probandi. As I said above, Catholics corroborate this decree by 
many other arguments, improbable as this may appear to those 
who look on your essay as a fair and candid exposition of the 
state of this controversy. This might be the most proper place 
for introducing them. But as, in order to develope them fully, I 
would have to say much which I should again repeat in answer- 
ing your " irresistible" arguments, I will defer doing so just now ; 
and will proceed to test the force of those same " irresistible" 
arguments. 

The first you state in the following words : — 
" I. Our first argument is drawn from the indisputable fact 
that these books were not found in the canon of the Jews in the 
time of our Saviour and his Apostles. It is even doubted by 
learned men, whether some of them existed at all until some 
time after the Apostles had fallen asleep. But be this as it may, 
they were not in the sacred canon of the Jews, or the catalogue 
of books which the whole nation received as coming from God. 
We have very clear testimony upon the subject of the Jewish 
canon, in Josephus, Philo, the Talmud and the early Christian 
Fathers. It is unnecessary to quote these testimonies at full 
length. Those who have not access to the original works, may 
find them faithfully collated in Schmidius de Canone Sacro, and 
the Eichhorris Einleitung. We would particularly commend to 
the reader's attention Hornemann 's book de Canone PMlonis. 
Augustine again and again confesses that the Apocrypha formed 



376 APPENDIX. 

no part of the Jewish canon. He declares that Solomon was 
not the author of the books of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, and 
assures us, moreover, that those books were chiefly respected by 
the Western Christians. He informs us that Judith was not re- 
ceived by the Jews ; and his testimony in relation to Maccabees 
is equally decisive. We insist upon the testimony of Augustine, 
which may be found in his Treatise De Civ. Dei, lib. i. c. 17, 
because he had evidently a very great respect for these books — 
for he frequently quotes them, and because he was a member of 
the body whose decisions in their favor have been strongly and 
earnestly pleaded. We take it, then, to be a fact which no 
scholar would think of calling into question, sustained by the 
concurring testimony of Jews and Christians for four hundred 
years after Christ, that the Jews rejected the Apocrypha from 
their canon. For the purpose of our present argument it is not 
necessary to show what books they did receive, nor how they 
classed and arranged them. It is enough that they had a canon 
which they believed to be inspired, and that in it the Apocrypha 
were not included. 

" Now our argument is this : Jesus Christ and his Apostles ap- 
proved of the Jewish canon, whatever it was; appealed to it as 
possessing Divine authority; and evidently treated it as at that 
time complete, or as containing the whole of God's revelation as 
far as it was then made. If the Apocrypha had been really a 
part of that revelation, and the Jews had either ignorantly or 
wickedly suppressed it, how comes it that Christ nowhere re- 
bukes them for their error 1 We find him severely inveighing 
against the Pharisees for adding to the Word of God by their 
vain traditions, but not a syllable do we hear in regard to what 
was equally culpable, their taking from it, which they certainly 
had done if the Apocrypha were inspired. Here was confess- 
edly a great teacher and prophet in Israel — their long-expected 
Messiah, who constituted the burden of their Scriptures accord- 
ing to his own testimony : and yet, while he quotes and approves 
the canon of the Jews, and remands the Jews themselves to their 
own Scriptures, he nowhere insinuates that their sacred library 
was defective. If the Jews had done wrong in rejecting the 
Apocrypha, is it credible that he who came in the name of 



APFENDIX. 377 

God — a teacher sent from God to reveal fully the Divine will, 
would have passed over without noticing such a flagrant fraud ? 
We find him reproving his countrymen for every other cor- 
ruption in regard to sacred things of which they are known to 
have been guilty, but not a whisper escapes his lips or the lips 
of his Apostles touching this gross suppression of a large portion 
of the Word of God. The conclusion is irresistible, that neither 
Jesus nor his Apostles believed in the Divine authority of the 
Apocrypha — they knew that they were not inspired. We will grant 
the Romanist what he cannot prove, and what we can disprove, 
that these books are quoted in the New Testament. This will 
not remove the difficulty. According to his views of the canon, 
the Jews were guilty of an outrageous fraud in regard to the 
Sacred Oracles, and yet neither Christ nor his Apostles, whose 
business it was to give us the whole revelation of God, ever 
charged them with this fraud, or took any steps to restore the re- 
jected books to their proper places. Christ, as the great Prophet 
of the church, was unfaithful to his high and solemn trust, if 
he stood silently by when the Word of God was trampled in the 
dust or buried in obscurity, or even robbed of its full authority. 
To the Jews were committed the Oracles of God (Rom. iii. 2); 
if they betrayed their trust, we ought to have been informed of 
it before the lapse of sixteen centuries. 

" It is vain to allege that Christ and his Apostles used the 
Septuagint, and that this version contained the Apocrypha. In 
the first place, it cannot be proved that the Septuagint at that 
time did contain the Apocrypha ; in the second place, if it did 
contain them, the difficulty is rather increased than lessened. 
The question is, What books did the Jews, to whom were com- 
mitted the Oracles of God, receive as inspired 1 Did Christ 
know that they rejected the Apocrypha from the list of inspired 
writings ? If so, and the Septuagint version was in his hands 
and really contained these rejected books, what more natural than, 
that Christ should have told his Apostles that here are books 
which the Jews reject, but which you must receive — they are of 
equal authority with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms ? 
His total silence both before the Jews and his own disciples, be- 
comes more unaccountable than ever, if the books were actually 

17* 



378 APPENDIX. 

before him and almost forced upon his notice by the version of 
the Scriptures which he used. But we do not insist upon this, 
because we do not believe that the Septuagint, at that time, con- 
tained the Apocrypha.* If it should be said that the Jews re- 
ceived these books as inspired, but did not insert them in the 
canon because they had not the authority of a prophet for doing 
so, why is it that Christ did not give the requisite authority, if 
not to the Jewish Priests and Rulers, at least to his own Apostles ? 

" Upon every view of the subject, then, the silence of Christ 
is wholly unaccountable, if these writings are really inspired. It 
becomes simple and natural upon the supposition that they were 
merely human productions. The Jews had done right in reject- 
ing them — they stood upon a footing with other literary works, 
and our Saviour had no more occasion to mention them than he 
had to mention the writings of the Greek Philosophers. " 

Now, Rev. Sir, you say that a Canon is not an inspired book, 
but a list or catalogue of inspired works. You lay down the 
proposition, which I admit, that at the time of the Saviour the 
Jewish Synagogue had such a canon, and that the books you 
controvert were not included therein. There might be some dis- 
cussion as to part of what you exclude, but I will not argue the 
point. Even be it, if you will, that during the preaching of the 
Saviour, not one of the books or parts of books, the inspiration of 
which you deny, was included in the canon of the Synagogue of 
Jerusalem. 

You then make the four following assertions: 

1. That the Jews " rejected" those books from their canon in 
such a manner as, were they in truth inspired, to be guilty of an 
outrageous fraud in regard to the " Sacred Oracles." 

2. That " the Saviour and his Apostles approved of the 
Jewish canon." 

3. That they " appealed to it as possessing divine authority." 

4. That they " evidently treated it as complete, or as contain- 
ing the whole of God's revelation, as far as it was then made." 

Now, Rev. Sir, in regard to the last three points I notice a 
very serious oversight in your essay. You have entirely forgotten 

* Vid. Schmidius de Canone. 



APPENDIX. * 379 

or omitted to allege, or even by note to refer to, a single passage of 
the New Testament, wherein the Saviour or the Apostles speaks 
at all of the canon of the Jews. They refer to the Scriptures 
generally and to particular books, they quote from them, but there 
is not in the whole New Testament a single passage showing that 
Christ and his Apostles ever refered to the canon, catalogue, or 
list of inspired books held among the Jews, much less treated 
that catalogue as complete, and " containing the whole of God's 
Revelation, as far as then made." 

But what you cannot sustain by an appeal to the words of the 
Saviour or of the Apostles, you seek to establish by inference. 
If those works are, as the Council of Trent declared them to be, 
in reality divinely inspired, the Jewish nation, in not admitting 
them into their canon, " betrayed their trust," were guilty of 
" fraud," " trampled in the dust, or buried in obscurity, or even 
robbed of its full authority" the word of God, were " guilty of 
an outrageous fraud in regard to the Sacred Oracles." " It was 
the business of Christ and his Apostles to give us the whole reve- 
lation of God." Consequently, in that case they " would have 
charged the Jews with this fraud, or taken some steps to restore 
the rejected books to their proper places." He did not; neither 
did his Apostles. Therefore those books are not inspired, are of 
" no more authority than Seneca's Letters or Tully's Offices," 
and the Jewish canon, which did not contain them, was then 
" complete," and was treated as such by the Saviour and Apos- 
tles. This, if I understand you, is the pith of your argument ; 
in which, by the by, your third assertion is still left entirely un- 
supported. 

Before answering this argument, allow me to make a few pre- 
liminary observations. 

1st. That there is great difference between not inserting a 
work really inspired, in a Canon, because there is not requisite 
proof to establish its inspiration, or sufficient authority to insert 
it ; and rejecting it, when that proof and authority both exist. 
The first course is proper — to insert a book under such circum- 
stances would be criminal." The second deserves all the terms 
you use. The first was the case of the Jews. Without a shadow 
of proof therefor, you charge them with the second, if those 



380 APPENDIX, 

works are inspired. In your argument this distinction seems not 
to have struck you, or you have kept it out of sight until the 
end. You admit it, however, towards the close, when you say : 
" If it should be said that the Jews received those books as in- 
spired, but did not insert them in the canon, because they had 
not the authority of a prophet for doing so," etc. 

2d. In case those books were in reality inspired, though not 
inserted in the Jewish canon, it would rrave been sufficient for the 
Saviour or the Apostles to place them among the divinely inspired 
books of the church. This I think evident to every Christian. 
You seem to admit it, also, when you ask : (i Why is it that 
Christ did not give the requisite authority, if not to the Jewish 
Rulers and Priests, at least to his own Apostles V s 

3d. Christ and his Apostles might have said much in regard 
to the Scriptures and inspired books, which is not recorded in 
the New Testament. I cannot quote higher and fuller authority 
than the New Testament itself. " But there are also many other 
things which Jesus did ; which if they were written every one, 
the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books 
that should be written.' 5 John xxi. 25. " To whom (the Apos- 
tles) also he (Jesus) showed himself alive after his passion by 
many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of 
the kingdom of God." Acts i. 3. " Therefore, brethren, stand 
fast, and hold the traditions which you have received, whether by 
word or by our Epistle." 2 Thess. ii. 14. I might quote other 
texts, but my remark is evidently true. Did not the Apostles 
change the Jewish Sabbath for the Lord's day, making this a 
day of rest consecrated to God, and abrogating the first ? Where 
will you find that in the New Testament ? This, too, you seem 
to allow is possible, as you begin your second argument with the 
following words : " If it should be pretended that Christ did give 
his Apostles authority to receive these books, though no record 
was made of the fact, we ask," etc. 

4th. I might also make another remark. Supposing those 
works inspired, as I contend they are, but not admitted at the 
Saviour's time into the Jewish canon, it was not, strictly speaking, 
necessary that either Christ or the Apostles should testify person- 
ally to their inspiration. If the Saviour established a body of 



APPENDIX. 



:tel 



men, who, by his authority and under the guidance of His Holy 
Spirit of Truth, were to decide that question, which, as I showed 
in Letter I., we are necessarily bound to admit, the decision of 
such a body at any subsequent period would be amply sufficient. 
The Christian world would have had, in the mean time, many 
other divinely inspired works. If God was not pleased to give 
any inspired works to the children of Israel before Moses, nor to 
inspire the prophets till a far later period, surely it would be the 
height of presumption in us now to lay down rules to Him, pre- 
scribing when he should inspire a work or establish its inspiration. 
This is more evident, when we consider that the Jews had, and the 
Christians must still have, some method of truly and satisfactorily 
ascertaining the truths of Revelation, other than the simple 
perusal of all the inspired works. In regard to the Jews, this is 
evident, and is allowed by themselves. That Christians, too, 
have such a mode, (a doctrine you are aware Catholics hold^) is 
shown to be necessarily true by a train of argument similar to 
that of my preceding letter, and equally cogent. Surely the 
300,000 negroes in South Carolina prohibited by law from being 
taught to read, cannot learn much from the perusal of the Scrip- 
tures. Must they therefore remain ignorant of the truths of 
Christianity? Again, has God ever declared that he will never 
inspire* another work ? And if He has not limited his omnipo- 
tence, shall we dare to place bounds to it? Now, in point of 
fact, as far as the Christian world is concerned, there would be 
little if any difference between His inspiring a work 500, 1,000, 
or 2,000 years after Christ, and His then making known, in any 
way He thinks proper, that a work written any number of years 
before, is inspired. I make this remark, not because I intend to 
use it in my argument, but because it is highly improper to bind 
down the Providence of God, in regard to the inspired writings, 
to certain laws and times, as you seem to do, that have no founda- 
tion in truth. The Saviour came, if you will, to give us the 
whole Revelation of God, that is, all the doctrinal truths of that 
revelation, but not all the inspired works; for not one of the 
books of the New Testament was written until years after his cru- 
cifixion. St. John wrote the last after the year 90. Many early 
Christians thought that the Pastor of Hermes, written many years 



382 APPENDIX. 

still later, was inspired. They were mistaken; but even that 
error shows that they, at that early age, knew of no declaration 
of the Saviour or Apostles that there should be no more inspired 
books. 

With these prefatory observations, I take up your argument 
as simply stated above,' and meet it by answering, that when the 
Jewish synagogue did not admit those works into the canon, it 
was because of the want of proof of their inspiration, and per- 
haps want of authority to amend an already duly established 
canon ; and that therefore they were not guilty of the heinous sin 
you lay at their door : and, secondly, that Christ and his Apostles 
did take some steps, not indeed to insert those books in the 
Jewish canon, but to give them to the Christians as divinely in- 
spired works ; and it is in consequence of those steps, that the 
Catholic church has ever held them as inspired, and the Council 
of Trent enumerated them in the list of " Sacred and Canon- 
ical" works. 

The distinction laid down in my first remark, completely nul- 
lifies your argument. In order to convict the Jews of an " out- 
rageous fraud in regard to the sacred oracles," if those works 
are inspired, you should show, not only that those works were not 
inserted in the national canon, but also that when a work was in- 
spired, sufficient proof thereof was ever offered under the syna- 
gogue, and that there also ever existed some individual or body of 
men who had authority to act on such proof, and to amend accord- 
ingly that national canon. Need I say that in your dissertation 
we look in vain for any thing establishing either of those points? 
The only remark bearing on them is that already refered to : " If 
it should be said that the Jews received those books as inspired, 
but did not insert them in the canon, because they had not the 
authority of a prophet for doing so, why* is it that Christ did not 
give the requisite authority, if not to the Jewish priests and rulers, 
at least to his own Apostles?" I assert that the Saviour did give 
to His Apostles and their successors every power that was neces- 
sary. This follows as a necessary consequence from the argu- 
ment laid down in my previous letter, and I will further sustain 
it by historical evidence. But even had He done nothing direct- 
ly or indirectly, recorded or unrecorded, on the matter, the only 



APPENDIX, 383 

legitimate consequence would be that He was not pleased ever to 
prove authoritatively the inspiration of those books. I confess it 
would be highly probable they were uninspired, but their want of 
inspiration would not be an inevitable consequence. Were not 
the vision of Addo, and other works I will mention below, in- 
spired, though now lost, and known only byname? Who can 
say that the other prophets of those days did not write works, 
even whose names are unknown ? They doubtless served the 
particular end for which God designed them. But even had the 
Saviour acted in such a matter as to show evidently that those 
works were uninspired, this would not touch either of two points 
so important to the validity of your argument. These, Rev. Sir, 
you have assumed without any show of reason or authority. Your 
argument is valueless, and crumbles under its own " irresistible " 
weight. 

I might here dismiss this part of your essay, as the onus was 
certainly on you to prove every thing necessary to make your 
argument conclusive. However, even though it be something 
"over and above" what justice to my cause "absolutely re- 
quired," I will lay before our readers a few remarks on the na- 
tional canon of the Jews. 

The earliest notice of an authoritative sanction of any work 
among the Israelites, is found in the command of Moses to the 
Levites, (Deut. xxxi. 24, 26,) to place in the side, or by the 
side of the Ark, the volume in which he had written the words 
of the law. This would appear to designate the book of Deuter- 
onomy alone, and certainly it does not follow from the words 
used, that Moses, in writing that volume, received the supernat- 
ural assistance of Divine Inspiration. But I am willing to admit 
that the entire Pentateuch was even in that early period known 
to be inspired, and was used in the public services, though this 
last, I think, cannot be proved. Moses died in the year 1447 
before Christ, according to Calmet. Esdras returned to Jeru- 
salem from the Babylonian captivity, 462, B. C. During this 
period of nearly 1000 years, many inspired works were written. 
We have a number of them in the Old Testament. Others, too, 
were written which no longer exist. I might mention the book 
of Samuel the Seer, that of Nathan the prophet, and of Gad the 



384 APPENDIX. 

Seer,* containing accounts not found in our Bible, the books of 
Ahias the Silonite, and the vision of Addo the Seer,f the books 
of Semeias the Prophet,! and the words of Hozai ;§ and might 
easily swell the catalogue. All those works, extant or lost, were 
in all probability known to be inspired by the cotemporaries of 
the several writers, but we have nothing to lead us to suppose 
that during all this time an exact catalogue or canon of them was 
formed by national or Divine authority. In the year 970 B. C, 
after many of them were written, the ten tribes separated from 
the kingdom of Judah, not a few of the Israelites retaining the 
true faith. After they were borne into captivity, and other 
nations introduced into their country, these new comers were 
instructed by an Israelite priest how they should worship the 
Lord : but for some time they joined therewith heathen profani- 
ties and idolatry. These, however, we know they afterwards 
abandoned. You are aware they still exist, and that they have 
always publicly recognized only the five books of Moses as in- 
spired. It would appear, then, that at the time of the separation 
of the children of Israel under Rehoboam, no canon had been 
yet drawn up by due authority. 

This is more evident if we advert to the fact that all the Jew- 
ish writers attribute the formation of their canon to the Cheneseth 
Ghedolah, or great Synagogue, after the captivity of Babylon, of 
which Esdras was a principal member. According to the testi- 
mony of the Rabbins generally, this synagogue commenced 
under Darius Hystaspes, and ended in Simon, surnamed the 
Just, high priest under Seleucus Nicanor. All agree in placing 
it between those two extremes, and some restrict it, at least in 
its flourishing condition, to a much shorter space. It seems gen- 
erally to be allowed that the greater part of the duty in regard 
to the Sacred writings devolved on Esdras himself, who expur- 
gated the Sacred works from the various faults into which copy- 
ists had fallen, and collected them all into one body, introduced 



* 1 Paralip. or 1 Chron. xxix. 30. 

t 2 Paralip. or 2 Chron ix. 29 ; xii. 15 ; xiii. 22. 

X 2 Paralip. or 2 Chron. xii. 15. 

§ 2 Paralip. or 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19. 



APPENDIX. 385 

the Jewish divisions of Perislwt, Sedarim, and Pes/iuot, and 
arranged the whole into books. It would seem, too, and it is 
generally admitted, that various additions were made; such as 
the conclusion of the books of Deuteronomy concerning the 
death of Moses. Grotius thought that the inscriptions and dates 
at the beginning of the prophecies, originated here too. But I 
do not see why we need go so far, as it was natural that the 
original writers should place them there, and they elsewhere 
occur under such circumstances as show them to be evidently 
the work of the Prophets themselves. In speaking of this re- 
cension of the Scripture and formation of the canon, the Jews 
generally attributed it to the Chenescth Ghedolah, or great syna- 
gogue, as in the treatise Meghillah, third chapter of the Ghe- 
mara, they say this synagogue restored the pristine purity of the 
Scriptures, and in Baba bathra, chap. 1, that the men of the 
great synagogue wrote the book of the twelve prophets, and the 
books of Daniel and Esther. Elias the Levite, and other learned 
Rabbins, treat the whole work as that of the synagogue. Per- 
haps we would not be far from the truth in saying that Esdras, 
as member of the Sanhedrin, revised the copies of the sacred 
writings, restored the true reading, collected the scattered parts 
of the Psalms, as the author of the Synopsis of Scripture, some- 
times attributed to St. Athanasius, and St. Hilary (Prol. in 
Psalm.) say, the detached Proverbs, and the other scattered 
parts, and arranged the whole in a body; and that the synagogue 
itself authoritatively sanctioned the work, thus establishing a 
national canon. In this plan we must admit that some other 
books were superadded at a posterior date, by the same syna- 
gogue. In arriving at a decision on the formation of this canon, 
we have to guide ourselves, not by the infallible unvarying state- 
ments of inspired writers, but by the perplexed, sometimes con- 
tradictory, and often nearly valueless statements of historians 
who wrote long afterwards. One thing is certain, the canon was 
closed after the admission of the book of Nehemiah. No evi- 
dence whatever exists to prove the existence of a national canon 
before the Babylonian captivity. The Jewish and the early 
Christian writers speak of this alone, and their testimonies, care- 
fully weighed, would lead to the opinion I have stated. 



386 APPENDIX. 

What were the ideas of the Jews on this subject at the time 
of the Saviour, may be learned from the following passage of Jo- 
sephus Flavius, in his first book against Appion. After stating 
in the sixth chapter that the ancient Jews took great care about 
writing records of their history, and that they committed that 
matter to their high priests and their prophets, and that those re- 
cords had been written all along down to his own times with the 
utmost acccuracy : and in the seventh, that the best of the priests 
and those who attended upon the divine worship, were appoint- 
ted from the beginning for that design, and that great care was 
taken that the race of the priests should continue unmixed and 
pure, he continues : 

" And this is justly or rather necessarily done, because every 
one is not permitted of his own accord to be a writer, nor is 
there any disagreement in what is written ; they being only pro- 
phets that have written the original and earliest accounts of 
things, as they learned them of God himself by inspiration ; and 
others have written what hath happened in their own times, and 
that in a very distinct manner also. 

" For we have not an innumerable multitude of books 
among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another, [as 
the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, which contain 
the records of all the past time; which are justly believed to be 
divine. And of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his 
laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. 
This interval of time from the death of Moses till the reign of 
Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the pro- 
phets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their 
times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain 
hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It 
is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very par- 
ticularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with 
the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an ex- 
act succession of prophets since that time. And how firmly we 
have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident 
by what we do ; for during so many ages as have already passed, 
no one hath been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to 
take any thing from them, or to make any change in them." 



APPENDIX. 387 

From this it appears that there were among the Jews at our 
Saviour's time two classes of books which were deemed worthy 
of respect, their canonical works and others " not esteemed of 
the like authority." In the Jewish writers we find two degrees 
of inspiration designated, which they term barrahh haqqadosh 
and bebet qol. In both they recognise an assistance of God, and 
say that the books of their canon attained the first rank, while 
the second degree only was attained by writers after it was com- 
pleted. I may refer you to the Talmud, Baba Cama, chap. 
Hachobel, where the work of Ben Sirah, as they style Ecclesi- 
asticus, is declared thus inspired. St. Jerome in his preface to 
Judith expressly states that the work is classed by the Jews 
among the Hagiographa* or sacred writings, not of the first 
class, for he elsewhere states that they were not in the Jewish 
canon, but consequently in the second. The books of Tobias, 
Judith and the Maccabees evidently fall under the class specially 
mentioned by Josephus. 

I do not feel it necessary, Rev. Sir, to dwell at length on 
this topic, as you have merely assumed, without any proof, that 
the Jews rejected as uninspired, mere human productions, all 
books not contained in their canon. 

The Jewish writers declare that their national canon was 
closed and sealed by the Great Synagogue; and that books 
written afterwards attained a lower degree of inspiration. What 
authority they thought necessary and sufficient to amend that 
canon, I have never met laid down by any one of them. They 
seem to presuppose that no such authority existed in fact. Nor 
do they treat of the evidence sufficient to establish the inspira- 
tion of a work. We must conclude, then, that those works 
were never brought before a competent tribunal of the Jewish 
nation, with sufficient evidence, if they were inspired, to prove 
it, and yet were rejected. Nevertheless, all this must be proved: 
it must be established that such a tribunal did exist ; that those 
works whose inspiration you controvert, were laid before it; 



* Some copies have Apocrypha, but Jahn, after a critical examination of 
the authorities, decides that Hagiographa is the true original reading, and the 
other a posterior change. 



388 APPENDIX. 

that if they were inspired, sufficient evidence to prove the fact 
was and must have been brought forward ; and finally that the 
tribunal rejected the evidence, condemned the books, and re- 
fused to admit them into the canon. This you have not endea- 
vored to establish. Had you endeavored, you would have failed, 
for you would have found the monuments of history arrayed 
against you. And yet it should have been established before 
you could reasonably assert that in regard to these books, if they 
are inspired, the Jewish nation had been " guilty of an outra- 
geous fraud on the Sacred Oracles/' and that consequently they 
would have merited and received a severe rebuke from the Sa- 
viour, which rebuke the Evangelists were bound to insert in 
their Gospels. 

But, Rev. Sir, even had the Jews been in reality thus hei- 
nously guilty, was the Saviour bound to rebuke them? Did not 
the Sadducees and Samaritans criminally reject as uninspired, 
treat merely as human productions, all the inspired works ex- 
cept the Pentateuch or five books of Moses ? We know that He 
his and Apostles conversed with them, opposed and condemned 
their errors ; but where did He charge them with this heinous 
fraud ? Or even had He rebuked the Jews, I cannot see why 
the Evangelists were bound to record it more than " all the 
other things that Jesus did/' or all his discourses with his apos- 
tles for forty days after his resurrection. It surely would have 
been enough to condemn and correct the outrageous fraud of 
the Jews, had any been committed, to leave the books they 
omitted to the xhurch which He founded ; and for us it would 
be enough, if we can know this with certainty. This leads me 
to the second part of my answer to your argument. Did the 
Saviour and his Apostles leave those books and parts of books 
to the early Christians, as inspired works ? 

My first reply would be based on the principles of my last 
letter. There must be a sure method whereby the wearied 
little sweep, who now cries under my window, who has trudged 
the streets since early dawn, and ere another hour will bury his 
limbs in balmy sleep, preparing for to-morrow's task, can answer 
that question as confidently and as accurately as you, Rev. Sir, 
whom years of study have made conversant with ancient Ian- 



APPENDIX. 389 

guages, and who have libraries at hand and leisure to pore over 
the tomes of other days. That method is the teaching of the 
Catholic church, divinely guaranteed from error. Were he to 
ask me, to that church and her testimony I would refer him ; 
and if reason and common sense prove aught, you must admit 
that the answer he would receive at her hands would be uner- 
ring. 

You require positive proofs from history of the fact, and I 
am ready to bring them forward. We have, as I stated — and 
your argument is based on the acknowledgment — no record in 
the New Testament of the books the Apostles or the Saviour 
did leave to their followers as inspired. They refer to the Scrip- 
tures in general, and quote or allude to particular passages, but 
have nowhere drawn up a list of the Scriptural works. The 
evidence must manifestly be drawn from the history of the 
church, whence too you in your second argument have endea- 
voured to extract proofs for your cause. As I intend following 
the divisions of your essay, I will reserve the testimonies of the 
early Christian writers for my next letter. 

Now that the difficulty you imagined so unconquerable, the 
fraud of the Jews and the necessity for its recorded condemna- 
tion, has vanished, you will probably retract your concession : 
" We will grant " the Catholic " what he cannot prove, and 
what we can disprove, that these books are quoted in the New 
Testament." It was certainly easier and more prudent to pass 
by this argument in the manner you have done, than to disprove 
it, as you assert you can. I will lay before you some of the 
texts of the New Testament, in which the passages of those 
works are quoted or referred to. 

1. " See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to 
have done to thee by another." Tob. iv. 16. " All things, 
therefore, whatsoever, you would that men should do to you, do 
you also to them." Matt. vii. 12. " And as you would that 
men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner." 
Luke vi. 31. 

2. " Happy shall I be, if there shall remain of my seed, to 
see the glory of Jerusalem. The gates of Jerusalem shall be 
built of sapphire and emerald, and all the walls thereof round about 



390 APPENDIX. 

of precious stones. All its streets shall be paved with white and 
clean stones : and Alleluia shall be sung in its streets. Blessed 
be the Lord who hath exalted it, and may he reign in it for ever 
and ever, Amen." Tobias xiii. 20, 23. 

" And the building of the wall thereof was of jasper stone, 
but the city itself pure gold, like to clear glass. And the foun- 
dation of the walls of the city were adorned with all manner of 
precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second, 
sapphire .... the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates 
are twelve pearls, one to each : and every several gate was of one 
several pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, as it 
were transparent glass." Apocalypse or Rev. xxi. 18, 21. 

3. " But they that did not receive the trials with the fear of 
the Lord, but uttered their impatience, and the reproach of their 
murmuring against the Lord, were destroyed by the destroyer, 
and perished by serpents." Judith viii. 24, 25. 

" Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted and 
perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur, as some of 
them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer." 1. Cor. 
x. 9, 10. 

4. " The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks 
among the reeds." Wisdom iii. 7. " Then shall the just shine 
as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father." Matt. xiii. 43. 

5. " They (the just) shall judge nations and rule over people, 
and their Lord shall reign forever." Wisdom iii. 8. " Know 
you not that the Saints shall judge this world?" 1 Cor. vi. 2. 

6. " He pleased God and was beloved, and living among sin- 
ners he was translated." Wisdom iv. 10. " By faith, Henoch 
was translated that he should not see death, and he was not found, 
because God had translated him. For before his translation, he 
had testimony that he pleased God." Heb. xi. 5. 

7. " For she (Wisdom) is the brightness of Eternal Light 
and the unspotted mirror of God's Majesty, and the image of his 
goodness." Wisdom vii. 26. " Who (the Son of God) being 
the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance, &,c." 
Heb. i. 3. See also 2 Cor. iv. 4, and Col. i. v. 

8. " For who among men is he that can know the counsel of 
God? or who can think what the will of God is?" Wisdom ix. 



APPENDIX. 391 

13. " For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath 
been his counsellor?" Rom. xi. 34. 

9. " The potter, also, tempering soft earth, with labor fash- 
ioneth every vessel for our service; and of the same clay he 
maketh such vessels as are for clean uses, and likewise such as 
serve to the contrary ; but what is the use of these vessels, the 
potter is the judge." Wisdom xv. 7. " Or hath not the potter 
power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto 
honor, and another unto dishonor '?" Rom. ix. 21. 

10. " Or if they admired their power and their effects, let 
them understand by them, that he who made them is mightier 
than they ; for by the greatness of the beauty and the creature, 
the Creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby." 
Wisdom xiii. 4, 5. " For the invisible things of him, from the 
creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made." Rom. i. 20. 

11. " And his zeal will take armor, and he will arm the crea- 
ture for the revenge of his enemies. He will put on justice as a 
breast-plate, and will take true judgment instead of a helmet. 
He will take equity for an invincible shield : and he will sharpen 
his severe wrath for a spear." Wisdom v. 18, 21. " Therefore 
take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist 
in the evil day and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, 
having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast- 
plate of justice in all things taking the shield of faith, where- 
with you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most 
wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and 
the sword of the Spirit, (which is the word of God.") Eph, vi. 
13, 17. 

12. " They that fear the Lord, will not be incredulous to his 
word ; and they that love him will keep his way. They that fear 
the Lord will seek after the things that are well pleasing to him ; 
and they that love him, shall be filled with his law. . . They that 
fear the Lord, keep his commandments, and will have patience, 
even until his visitation." Ecclesiasticus ii. 18,21. "If any 
one love me, he will keep my word." Jno. xiv. 23. 

13. " My son, meddle not with many matters : and if thou be 
rich, thou shalt not be free from sin." Ecclus. xi. 10. " For 



392 APPENDIX. 

they that will become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare 
of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which 
drown men into destruction and perdition." 1 Tim. vi. 9. 

14. " There is one that is enriched by living sparingly, and 
this is the portion of his reward. In that he saith : I have found 
me rest, and now I will eat my goods alone ; and he knoweth not 
what time shall pass, and that death approacheth, and that he 
must leave all to others and shall die." Ecclus. xi. 18, 19, 20. 
" And I (the rich man in the parable) will say to my soul : Soul, 
thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thy rest ; eat, 
drink, make good cheer. But God said to him : Thou fool, this 
night do they require thy soul of thee ; and whose shall those 
things be which thou hast provided V 9 Luke xii. 19, 20, 

15. If thou wilt keep the commandments and perform ac- 
ceptable fidelity for ever, they shall preserve thee." Ecclus. xv. 
16. " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." 
Matthew xix. 17. 

16. The passage of St. Paul : " But others were racked, not 
accepting deliverance, that they might find a better resurrection," 
(Heb. xi. 35,) has been acknowledged, even by Protestant com- 
mentators, to be, and evidently is, a reference to the account of 
the martyrdom of Eleazer given in the second book of Macca- 
bees, vi. 18-31. 

I might cite many such passages, but these will be sufficient 
for my purpose. Any " candid and unprejudiced mind," at all 
versed in the rules of criticism, must see that in the New Tes- 
tament, the passages I have brought forward are alluded to and 
were had in view. The identity of thought and the similarity, 
often striking coincidence, of expression, absolutely require this, 
else there is no such thing as one writer's using the thought and 
expression of another. You say, though you do not maintain 
their opinion, that some " learned men have doubted whether 
some of them existed at all until some time after the last of the 
Apostles had fallen asleep." You yourself do not " believe that 
the Septuagint contained them, at the time of the Saviour and 
the Apostles." I have not taken the pains to see who were those 
learned men, or what books they thought were posterior to the 
Apostles. I have before me, and, had your adopting their opin- 



APPENDIX. 393 

ion rendered it necessary, or did the space of this letter permit, 
might produce testimony in abundance to prove those works an- 
terior to the Saviour. One of the authors you quote, Eichhorn, 
and Jahn, one of the most acute of German critics, declare that 
Philo has drawn much from the earlier of those works ; so much 
so as to have been sometimes deemed the author of the book of 
Wisdom. To your own " belief/ 7 and if you please, the authority 
of Schmidius, I will oppose the express declaration of Origen, 
the highest authority we can find or could desire on this question 
of fact. In his epistle to Julius Africanus, De Historia Susan- 
na, he says : " In nostro Greco sermone feruntur in omni ecclesia 
Christi," that these passages of Daniel " are found in our Greek 
tongue throughout the entire church ;" and further on : " Apud 
utrumque, (the Septuagint and Theodotion,) erat de Susanna ut 
tu dicis figmentum, et extremas partes in Daniele :" " in both (the 
Septuagint and the version of Theodotion) are contained what 
you call the fiction of Susannah, and the last parts of the book 
of Daniel ;" and immediately afterwards, enumerating what you 
term the additions to the book of Esther, emphatically declares 
that though not found in the Hebrew in his day, " Apud Septua- 
ginta autem et Theodotionem ea sunt;" " they are found, never- 
theless, in the Septuagint and Theodotion." T do not pretend 
to say that the Seventy translated into Greek works written in that 
language, as were some of the books in question, or not com- 
posed until they were in their graves. It is generally allowed 
that they translated at most only the canonical works of the 
Jews, shortly after that canon was formed. Other works, how- 
ever, existed in the Jewish nation, which were revered and used, 
and looked on as written in Bath quol, or the second degree of 
inspiration, and were added, if you please, as an appendix, to the 
collection of works translated by the Seventy ; the whole collec- 
tion, containing both classes of books, still retaining, at least 
among Christians, the name of the Septuagint version. Not to 
multiply quotations on this point, I will merely bring forward the 
testimony of Walton, the Editor of the Polyglott, whom I respect 
as the most learned of Protestants in such matters, and eminently 
qualified by his vast researches on the different versions, to de- 
cide authoritatively. His Protestantism effectually prevented 

18 



394 APPENDIX. 

any partiality in favor of those books. In his Prol. cap. v., he 
says: " Libri itaque apocryphi, ut a variis auctoribus ita variis 
temporibus scripti sunt, quidam Hebraice, quidam Graece ; et 
licet apud Hellenistas primum recepti fuerint, tempus tamen 
praecise assignari non potest, quando cum reliquis libris sacris in 
unum volumen compacti fuerint. Hoc tamen clarum est, a Ju- 
deis Hellenistis cum reliqua Scriptura Ecclesiam eos recepisse." 
" Wherefore the Apocryphal books were written as well by dif- 
ferent authors, as at different times ; some in Hebrew and some 
in Greek ; and although they were first received by the Hellenists, 
yet the precise time cannot be assigned when they were united in 
one volume with the other sacred works. This much, however, 
is evident, that the church received them from the Hellenist 
Jews." 

Whether this transfer was made with or without the consent 
of the Apostles, may, I think, be learned from a glance at the 
texts I have quoted above. What are the facts of the case ? 
There existed a certain collection of books well known to the 
Apostolic writers, and to the faithful to whom their Epistles 
were sent, as many, if not most of them, were converts from 
the number of those same Hellenist Jews. In that collection 
were comprised not only the canonical books of the Jews, but 
also those styled by the Protestants apocryphal, The Apostles 
quote frequently by name books of that collection, sometimes 
extract verbatim or with a partial change of words entire sen- 
tences, but more frequently adopting and appealing as it were 
to some passage, incorporate its sentiment, and more or less of 
its wording, into their own train of thought. .This is most fre- 
quently done by the Saviour, as may be seen by any of my 
readers who disdains not, in his love of the Bible alone, to use 
one with accurate marginal references. The passage from 
Tobias is as striking and as well defined a quotation as any 
other, and as such must have struck his hearers. The change 
of the original negative into the positive is not so striking as 
that of Micheas v. 2 : " And thou Bethelem Ephrata, art a little 
one among the thousands of Judah," quoted thus by St. Matthew, 
ii. 6 : " And thou, Bethelem the land of Judah, art not the least 
among the princes of Juda." Protestants find not the least 



APPENDIX. 395 

difficulty in admitting such passages of the New Testament to 
contain allusions to the Old, as long as their canonical books 
alone are concerned ; but when a passage of the works whose 
inspiration they deny is laid before them, the thought and tour- 
nure of expression of which an Apostle has adopted into his own 
Epistle, so evidently as would now-a-days suffice to convict a 
poet of plagiary, oh ! then that cannot be a quotation. Truly, 
Rev. Sir, to use your own words: " Light is death to their 
cause " 

I have thus, Rev. Sir, examined your first argument. You 
state that at the Saviour's time the Jews had a national canon, 
in which the works you impugn were not contained. I am wil- 
ling to admit this in regard to all the books except Baruch with 
the Epistle of Jeremiah, the addition to the Book of Esther, and 
the parts of Daniel which you style the Story of Susannah, the 
Story of Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of the three Children, 
I know that they had the books, of which these were considered 
parts : it is allowed that those parts once existed in the original 
language of those books, and that at the time of Origen they no 
longer existed in those languages. Before I admit that they per- 
ished in those languages, not after, but before the time of the Sa- 
viour, I must have proof positive, which I do not recollect having 
ever met, and I am of opinion, does not exist. However, I waived 
all controversy on this point, allowing your argument all the force 
it could receive from the fact, did it take place. 

You then said that the Jews excluded them from their canon 
under such circumstances as, were they in reality inspired, to ren- 
der themselves "guilty of an outrageous fraud in regard to the sacred 
oracles. " This was a mere assumption unsupported by any proof. 
It could not be the case, unless there existed a tribunal in their 
nation capable of adding to the canon already established ; and 
the books were laid before this tribunal. You seem to think 
that the Jewish canon was established by Divine authority. This 
would at once take off all responsibility from the Jewish nation, 
and defeat your own argument. 1 have not taken advantage of 
it, however ; as the Jews themselves attribute the formation of 
their canon, not to an immediate Revelation of God, but to their 
Cheneseth Ghedolah, or Great Synagogue. I, who see therein a 



396 APPENDIX. 

general Council of the Church in the Old Law, claiming and ex- 
ercising by the authority of God the power of teaching the faith- 
ful what were thei nspired works, will readily admit its Divine au- 
thority, as far as the decree can be evidently shown to have gone, 
that is, that those books were inspired. It cannot be proved that 
it determined any thing in regard to books either lost, as proba- 
bly many were, or yet unwritten, or not in their possession. It 
would seem that it was with great difficulty they obtained even 
those whose inspiration they testified to. I question much wheth- 
er in this view you will admit the Divine authority of the Jewish 
Canon ; and yet you say the Saviour did. History informs us 
that this Great Synagogue ended, and was not revived or suc- 
ceeded by any other of equal authority, to act on the canon of 
Scripture. Hence, even were there noonday evidence of the in- 
spiration of those books, the Jews could not, at least according 
to their own writers, place them in the Canon. It was not neces- 
sary that such full evidence should exist. We have no proof that 
it did exist; though that some evidence was in possession of the 
Jews, may be gathered from the facts that, as Walton says, they 
were united in the same volume, and that the Rabbins hold some 
of them as inferiorly inspired. At all events it is evident the 
Jews were not " guilty of an outrageous fraud in regard to the 
Sacred Oracles," in not inserting those works, even though they 
be inspired, in their national canon. 

Your next assertions were that " the Saviour and his Apostles 
approved of the Jewish Canon, whatever it was, and appealed to 
it as possessing Divine authority. " Had they gone no farther, 
this would not have militated against us. I might on the con- 
trary appeal to it as a positive Divine sanction of the fourth 
method of my preceding letter. Still you have not in their 
words the least support for your assertions. The circumstances 
from which you would infer it, exist simply in your own ardent 
imagination, and are not such as historical evidence sustains. 

These you follow up with another statement equally unsup- 
ported by their words or the facts of the case ; that " the Saviour 
and his Apostles evidently treated the Jewish Canon as complete, 
and containing the whole of God's revelation as far as it was then 
made." For this, precisely, you offer no proof. You view it as 



APPENDIX. 397 

the evident consequence of the other items of argument. They 
fall to the ground, and this must fall with them. 

You think that had the Jews been guilty of the heinous crime 
with which, in case these books are inspired, you tax them, the 
Saviour and his Apostles were bound to denounce this particu- 
lar offence. I think it would have been sufficient to condemn 
them in general, and to state some of their errors, without being 
bound to go over the whole list. He proposed the truth of 
Christianity in general, for their acceptance. If they embraced 
this, the acceptance of those books would have followed, as I will 
show it did follow for the early Christians. We know that, as a 
people, they ' received him not/ He came not to reform the 
Jewish Religion, but to establish another ; that which it foreshad- 
owed. He might, as he did, condemn particular errors and 
abuses, but the end, the grand aim of his preaching, was to bring 
them to believe in Him, and all those things which He taught 
his Apostles personally for forty days after his resurrection, or 
by the Spirit of truth afterwards, concerning his Church, the 
Kingdom of God. He never declared that he would, and we see 
no reason why he should, enumerate and condemn every abuse, 
or that he was bound to single out this particular error. We 
have two parallel cases : that of the Samaritans, whose schism 
or error he condemned in John iv. 22, and of the Sadducees whom 
both He and St. Paul condemned. Both were heinously guilty 
of rejecting inspired writings as mere human productions, and 
yet we have no evidence that they charged them with this par- 
ticular error or sin. Why then bind them to do so in regard to 
the Pharisees ? 

You finally state that Christ and his Apostles did nothing in 
regard to those books : and this you sustain in your first argu- 
ment by saying there is not in the New Testament any record of 
the fact ; and in your second, by endeavoring to show that the 
Christians of the first four centuries acted in such a manner in 
regard to those books, ag they certainly would not have done if 
the Saviour or his Apostles had given any testimony of their inspi- 
ration. 

I might answer, that though the Saviour did not establish evi- 
dently the inspiration of those books then, He could have done 



398 APPENDIX, 

it after four centuries with equal facility, either through such a 
body of individuals as I have often referred to, or by any other 
means he thought proper to use. The only questions for us 
would be, Did he adopt those means ? What are the books the 
inspiration of which is thus declared? 

But I meet your assertion directly. In my next, I will show 
that the early Christians acted in regard to these books in such 
a manner as they would not have done unless they had been re- 
ceived from the Saviour or the Apostles as inspired. We find 
nothing in the gospels or epistles to show that they do or must 
contain all that the Saviour or Apostles taught or did. St Paul 
taught many things by word, as we learn from himself. The 
Saviour's discourse to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and 
a full account of all his conversations with the apostles after his 
resurrection, would be very valuable. Among these last you 
might, reverend sir, find something bearing on the number of in- 
spired books. However, until you have all he said to the Jews 
and his Apostles, or an assurance from Him or them that this 
was not contained among the things omitted, venture not to as- 
sert that because He did not, as far as you can learn, say it on 
certain occasions to certain persons, he never said it to any one 
at all. That the Saviour and Apostles did do something in re- 
gard to those books, I opine, is evident from the texts I have 
quoted ; else plagiary among authors is an imaginary crime. 
The identity of thought and the similarity, sometimes copied 
turn of expression, prove this evidently. The circumstances 
of the case support it. According to Walton, the collection 
containing these, with the canonical books of the Jews, was in the 
hands both of the writers and those who read their books. The 
subjects were the same. In their writings they avowedly quote, 
adopt, and allude to the language and thoughts of that collection 
Those instances show that such allusions were made, not only to 
the canonical works, but also to those you deem uninspired. I 
believe with Walton, that the Septuagint, as that collection was 
called, contained those books before the coming of the Saviour ? 
You think this, if true, strengthens your argument. I think not. 
If those books thus united were uninspired, the Saviour and the 
apostles were certainly bound positively to reject them, and not to 



APPENDIX. -399 

suffer the unnatural union to pass into the church. Now I shall 
show, that as far hack as the remnants of those early ages will 
carry us, we find Christians uniting them both in the Septuagint, 
and revering both as divinely inspired. This very omission of 
excluding them, taken especially with the decided belief of the 
early Christians, is a strong proof in favor of the inspiration of 
those books. But you do not " believe that the Septuagint at 
the Saviour's time contained the Apocrypha." Reverend Sir, a 
more disastrous avowal you could not have made. The union 
then took place in the church ; necessarily under the eyes and 
with the approbation of the Apostles and their immediate, most 
faithful disciples. These books are quoted and referred to as 
divinely inspired Scripture. I could not desire a stronger case. 
Before the Apostles, the contested books were not inserted. Im- 
mediately afterwards we find them already inserted. A change 
has taken place. It could only be effected by, it can only be at- 
tributed to, the Saviour and his Apostles. Therefore they did 
leave works to the Christian world as inspired. 
I remain Rev. Sir, yours, &c. 

A. P. F. 



LETTER III. 

To the Rev. James H. Thornwell, Professor of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity, fyc. 

Rev. Sir, — We are now arrived at the most important point 
in the examination of the Historical Evidences in favor of those 
books, for revering which as " Sacred and Canonical," you 
charge the Catholic church with blasphemously adding to the 
word of God. 

Before I enter on the task of laying before you the evidence 
of that character in favor of the truth of the decree passed by 
the Council of Trent, let me again urge on you the absolute ne- 
cessity of admitting the divine authority on which the church 
based it ; and its consequent truth. By denying that authority, 
you at once overthrow the only means whereby the overwhelm- 
ing majority of Christians can learn with certainty, and on which 
they can be required to believe unhesitatingly, the inspiration of 



400 APPENDIX. 

the Scriptural books. Even did there exist no historical testi- 
mony whatever to prove the truth set forth in that decree, as 
long as we have reasons for admitting, and are forced by neces- 
sity to admit, the authority of the tribunal from which it ema- 
nates, the inspiration of those books is proved to our understand- 
ing by an a priori argument of the strongest character. 

In point of fact, millions on millions of Christians in every 
age have believed, and must still hold, the Scriptures to be divine- 
ly inspired, simply on authority. How many are there, think you, 
even among Protestants in South Carolina, who believe it; not 
because their parents or instructors have so taught them ; not 
because it is the general belief of persons whom they esteem, of 
the community of which they are members, of the denomination 
to which they are attached; nor yet because they have read some 
dissertation like yours, wherein a few names are quoted, some 
books in Latin or German referred to, some extracts inserted, 
and then a sweeping conclusion drawn, set off with a tirade of 
hard names and denunciations, but scarcely warranted by the pre- 
mises and wholly unsupported by facts ; how many, I ask, are 
there even among Protestants, who believe the Scriptures to be 
inspired, not on motives like these, but because clear and cogent 
and really valid arguments have been submitted to their under- 
standings ? I have amused myself at times by asking those who 
assail me with texts against what they believe are our doctrines, 
to prove the books they quote from to be inspired, and I very 
rarely found any one who knew even how to set about the task. 
They believed them to be inspired, not because any valid argu- 
ment from historical or internal evidence had been laid before 
them, but because they had been brought up and led by educa- 
tion and authority to do so. Whether by acting thus, notwith- 
standing the want of the aforesaid arguments, they followed a 
course that was not " righteous and holy" and " ran the risk of 
everlasting damnation, '' I leave you, Rev. Sir, to decide. To 
me such cases are but particular examples of a general truth 
taught alike by common sense and experience : that not one in 
ten thousand Christians has the time, the means and the ability 
to qualify himself properly for that arduous research, and to pros- 
ecute the investigation of that mass of evidence, with success. 



APPENDIX, 401 

Any system which would require all to do so, must be absurd, 
for it supposes that possible which is morally impossible ; and 
false, because it contradicts the infinite wisdom of God, as dis- 
played in his apportionment of men in the various conditions of 
life. Both among Catholics and Protestants there ever will be, 
there must be, many to whose understandings no valid arguments 
from reason or from historical evidence for the inspiration of the 
Scripture, will ever be submitted — whose condition in life pro- 
hibits it. Some may think they have them, whose reasons never- 
theless for belief are any thing but valid, and would only provoke 
a smile from those who are qualified to estimate their value. If 
God requires those millions to believe that inspiration at all, He 
requires them to believe it on authority ; for in no other manner 
can they learn it. And unless his works be imperfect, He has 
given an authority to teach them this doctrine, whose teaching 
constitutes the necessary, clear, cogent and valid argument which 
is to be laid before their understandings. Now in the Protest- 
ant system, there is no such authority to teach this truth, none 
which any one is bound to hear, or at least none which may not 
lead to error, and none therefore whose teaching necessarily 
gives truth with unerring accuracy, and leaves no room for rea- 
sonable doubt and hesitation. In this system God would not 
have provided any means whereby those can learn certainly and 
unerringly the inspiration of the Scripture, who are, by their 
circumstances, unavoidably restricted to the use of authority 
alone on this question. In the Catholic system, on the contrary, 
this hiatus in the works of God does not exist. An authority is 
established by Him to teach this truth, and in fulfilling that com- 
mission, is guarded by his Omnipotence from falling into error. 
The evidence of the commission itself and of the guaranty from 
error, is before the world. Christians are required to believe the 
Scriptures to be inspired on that authority ; and in believing, 
they have an assurance from Divine Truth and Omnipotence that 
they err not. Historical evidence may or may not exist to 
corroborate the declaration of that authority. Those who believe 
may or may not possess it. To them it is a secondary collateral 
proof, placing the doctrine, not in a firmer position, but, if you 
will, in a stronger light. A practical illustration adds nothing to 



402 APPENDIX, 

the certainty of a theorem established by mathematical demon- 
stration. If this collateral testimony were not in the possession 
of the person whose belief is required, or even were it not in ex- 
istence, the truth of the doctrine taught would remain unchanged 
and the obligation of believing it equally strong. 

Nay more, a person is still bound to believe, even when seem- 
ing arguments which he cannot refute are urged«to the contrary. 
Common sense tells him that what is known and proved to be 
true by one method of demonstration, cannot be shown to be re- 
ally false by another : that truth is never opposed to truth. Ex- 
perience would tell him that there is no doctrine against which 
words cannot be arrayed. He may find objections, the fallacy 
or falsehood of which he cannot point out, brought against the in- 
spiration of any or of all the books so declared to be inspired. 
But he knows that the authority which proclaims them inspired, 
teaches truth ; and that whatever contradicts truth must be er- 
roneous. He is bound still to believe. Men act thus every day 
in matters of life ; and they are forced to carry out the principles 
also in doctrines of Christianity. Let me illustrate it by an ex- 
ample. 

You hold, Rev. Sir, that God has declared and requires every 
one, even the unlettered negro, to believe unhesitatingly that 
there are three Divine Persons in one God. Now the negro, de- 
barred by law from learning to read, cannot peruse his Bible ; can- 
not (leaving aside the question of inspiration) decide whether 
certain texts (among them the strongest, perhaps the only deci- 
sive one on the Trinity) be interpolations, as most Protestant 
critics have determined that of I John v. 7 to be ; cannot col- 
late all the texts on the subject, and pronounce unerringly that in 
them God has made such a declaration. He must learn the doc- 
trine of the Trinity from authority. He is bound to believe it 
unhesitatingly, because God, who cannot declare an untruth, has 
declared it, and the Catholic would add, common sense re- 
quires, because the authority which communicates to him that 
declaration of God is prevented by Divine Omnipotence from 
teaching that He declared what in fact He did not. An Unita- 
rian might say to the negro : " You are told that the Father is 
distinct from the Son, and the Holy Ghost from both ; they are 



APPENDIX. 403 

three distinct Persons. Now, if the Father is God, and the Son 
is God, and the Holy Ghost is God they mast, therefore be three 
Gods and not one God, and to say that three distinct Persons 
form only one God, is as absurd as to say that three men form 
one individual. God could not have said so, for he cannot say 
any thing absurd, and any body that tells you He did say so, leads 
you into an error." Even a negro would see the force of this 
objection. Can he lay bare the sophism 1 In the Catholic sys- 
tem his answer would be clear and satisfactory. " My mind is 
feeble, I cannot by reasoning reply to what you say ; but here is 
a tribunal which God has appointed to teach me what doctrines 
he has declared, and which He will not permit to mistake. 
That tribunal tells me that He has declared this doctrine, and 
when He declares it, it must be true and not absurd, and there- 
fore I believe it, though I cannot refute your arguments." If, on 
the Protestant principle, he believed that the authority which had 
taught him the Trinity could propose doctrines which were false, 
and could assert that God had taught what in truth he did not 
teach, I confess that I do not see what answer the negro could 
make, or how he could reasonably continue in an unhesitating 
belief of the Trinity. 

I opine, too, that even the most learned theologian would find 
himself in the same predicament. It would puzzle him to explain 
how three Divine Persons, each of them God, can only constitute 
one God ; while three human persons must constitute, not one, but 
three beings. He can only seek to establish the fact, that God 
did declare this to be the case. Now 1 certainly believe the doc- 
trine of the Trinity as firmly as I do my own existence. But could 
I leave aside the authority of the Catholic church, could I believe 
that it was possible for her to declare that God has revealed a doc- 
trine which he has not, I, for one, would not admit this mystery ; 
for the simple reason that, except through her, I have no positive 
assurance that it is one of the doctrines revealed by Almighty God. 
The strongest text, as I said above, is rejected by most Protestant 
critics as supposititious. Were it not, it is susceptible of another 
and very different sense. So too are all the other texts urged in 
favor of this dogma. The Unitarians strongly and earnestly urge 
these views. And in perusing several Protestant treatises on the 



404 APPENDIX. 

subject, I have not met a Trinitarian who, in my opinion at least, 
could, without some one-sided appeal to the authority of the church 
to decide the question, overthrow their positions, or make out 
for himself more than a plausible, perhaps a probable case. De- 
prived of the authoritative teaching of the Catholic church, I 
would not, on mere plausible or probable evidence, yield an un- 
hesitating belief in so astounding a mystery as this, or expose my- 
self to the danger of Idolatrv by adoring as God one who might 
perhaps be after all a mere creature. I thank Heaven I am not 
left in this perplexity or unbelief. Though I cannot refute meta- 
physically all the metaphysical objections against the august mys- 
tery of the Trinity, though my researches of mere historical tes- 
timony or simple examination of the Scripture would not lead me 
to the certain and evident conclusion that God did reveal it, I 
have his Revelation unerringly preserved by those the Saviour 
sent to teach all that He had taught, even as He was sent by the 
Father. Them I hearas I would hear Him. On His authority, 
and their testimony, I believe the doctrine of the Trinity firmly 
and unhesitatingly despite of unsolved sophisms, and bend the 
knee to adore Jesus Christ as the Eternal God, no dark horrific 
doubt flashing the while through my mind, that perhaps He is 
but a creature, and I am staining my soul with the damning sin 
of Idolatry. 

To apply this to the subject of my letter. If Almighty God 
has been pleased to establish a tribunal, with authority to declare 
unerringly, in His name, what books are sacred and canonical, 
we are bound to receive unhesitatingly, as the word of God, the 
books designated as such by that tribunal, even though we pos- 
sess not collateral proof from historical or intrinsic evidence to 
sustain it. We would be equally bound to receive them, did no 
historical evidence whatever exi6t; nay, even if objections, which 
we have not the means of solving, could be urged against the 
inspiration of some or of all of those books. 

I have shown in my first letter that every Christian at least 
must admit that God did establish such a tribunal. When that 
is established, collateral testimony is of secondary importance. 
Had the flood of time swept away every record of the early church, 
as it has swept away many, the decree of the Council of Trent 
would still stand. 



APPENDIX. 405 

I have made these prefatory, perhaps discursive remarks, that 
our readers may see the nature, the bearing, and the value of 
historical testimony in favor of the inspiration of the books which 
Catholics admit as inspired, and you reject as of no more author- 
ity than Seneca's Letters, or Tully's Offices. 

I will now proceed to redeem the promise made towards the 
close of my last letter, and to show that the early Christians acted 
in such a manner in regard to those books and parts of books, 
as they would not have done, unless the Saviour and his Apos- 
tles had left them to the early church as inspired. Here, Rev. 
Sir, we are fairly at variance. I will give your second argument 
in your own words : — 

2. " If it should be pretended that Christ did give his Apos- 
tles authority to receive these books, though no record was made 
of the fact, we ask how it comes to pass — and we mention this 
as our second argument against them — that for four centuries 
the unbroken testimony of the Christian church is against their 
inspiration ? They are not included in the catalogues given by 
Melito, * Bishop of Sardis, who flourished in the second cen- 
tury — of Origen, t Athanasius, J Hilary, § Cyril of Jerusa- 
lem, || Epiphanias, fl Gregory Nazianzen, ** Ruffinus f t and 
others; neither are they mentioned among the canonical 
books recognized by the Council of Laodicea. As a sample of 
the testimonies referred to in the margin, we will give a few 
passages from Jerome, the author of the authentic version com- 
monly called the Vulgate. In the preface concerning all the 
books of the Old Testament which he prefixed to his Latin 
translation of Samuel and Kings, after having given us the Jew- 
ish canon, he says : • Hie prologus scripturarum, quasi Galeatum 
principium omnibus libris quos de Hebraeo vertimus in Latinum 
convenire potest : ut scire valeamus quicquid extra hos est inter 
Apocrypha esse ponendum.' ' Therefore/ he adds, ' Wisdom, 
which is vulgarly attributed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus 
the Son of Sirach, and Judith, Tobias, and Pastor, are not in 



* Euseb. lib. iv. c. 26. t Expos. Psal. i. Opp. torn. ii. Euseb. vi. 25. 

t Pasch. Epist. § Prolog, in Psalmos. || 4th Cate. Exer. 

1T Haeres. i. 6. ** Can. 33. ft Exposit. ad symb. apost. 



406 APPENDIX. 

the canon.' His testimony in relation to the Maccabees, is 
equally decided. In the prologue to his Commentary on Jere- 
miah, he declines explaining the book of Baruch, which in the 
edition of the LXX is commonly joined with it, because the Jews 
rejected it from the canon, and he of course knew no authority 
for inserting it. In the preface to his translation of Daniel, he 
assures us that the story of Susannah, the song of the Three 
Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, are not only 
not in the Jewish copies, but had exposed Christians to ridicule 
for the respect which they paid to them ! In his preface to To- 
bit and Judith he pronounces them Apocryphal ! 

" Here, then, about the close of the fourth century, we find 
no remnant of any unwritten tradition from Christ and his Apos- 
tles authorizing the church to receive these books. The early 
fathers followed in the footsteps of the Jews, and unanimously 
concurred in receiving no other canon of the Old Testament as 
inspired, but that which came down to them through the Jewish 
church. In this opinion learned men in every age have concur- 
red up to the very meeting of the Council of Trent. We refer 
to such men as Cardinal Ximenes, Ludovicus Vives, the accom- 
plished Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan. How could there have 
been such a general concurrence in an error so deplorable, if 
Christ and his Apostles had ever treated these books as the lively 
Oracles of God ! Surely there would have been some record, 
some hint of a fact so remarkable. We ask the Romanist to re- 
concile the testimonies of the Fathers with the decree of Trent. 
In the language of Bishop Burnet : " Here we have four centu- 
ries clear for our canon in exclusion of all additions. It were 
easy to carry this much further down, and to show that these 
books (the Apocrypha) were never by any express definition re- 
ceived into the canon till it was done at Trent, and that in all 
ages of the church, even after they came to be much esteemed, 
there were divers writers, and those generally the most learned of 
their time, who denied them to be a part of the canon.' " 

This, Rev. Sir, might strike a reader altogether unacquaint- 
ed with those early times, as very forcible, and nearly if not 
quite " irresistible." A second perusal of your essay would 
show him, that much as you seem to have kept the matter out of 



APPENDIX. 407 

sight, even in those first four ages there were at least two sides 
to the question, whereas your argument is grounded on the asser- 
tion that the unbroken testimony of the church during all this 
time was against the inspiration of those books. St. Jerome, 
you state, informs us that the Christians were exposed to ridicule 
from the Jews for the respect in which they held one part of what 
your arguments affirm uninspired writings. Now, St. Jerome 
wrote before the year 400, and that respect might, for aught you 
say, be some remnant of a tradition from the Apostles regarding 
their inspiration. Those decisions, too, which you spoke of, 
made in their favour by bodies of which St. Augustine was a 
member, occurred also before the year 400. Might they not be 
other remnants? But, Rev. Sir, to one who is acquainted with 
those early days of the church, it must be a matter of astonish- 
ment, how, if you had read five authors of those times, (and if 
you had not, you should not make your second argument so 
boldly,) you could assert unqualifiedly and emphatically " that for 
four centuries the unbroken testimony of the Christian church is 
against their inspiration/' 

I assert that, on the contrary, the manner in which the Chris- 
tians of the first four centuries acted in regard to those writings, 
shows that they were left to them by the Apostles as inspired. I 
presume you will admit that while these early Christians were 
tried in the furnace of persecution, and laid down their lives by 
thousands rather than swerve one jot or tittle from the truth 
handed down to them, they would not throughout the world 
unite in " blasphemously adding to the word of God." If they 
united in receiving those works as inspired, then is our cause 
fully sustained ; for they would not have thus united unless they 
had been taught by the Apostles that those books formed part of 
the word of God. You have appealed to the testimony of the 
church for the first four centuries. You shall have it. Would 
that you may abide by its award. 

In the first place, all those books or paints of books were con- 
tained in the Old Testament as used by the early Christians in the 
infancy of the Church. That they all existed at the time of St. 
Jerome, and at his day formed part of the Old Testament, can- 
not be denied. At the proper place, I will speak of his views on 



408 APPENDIX. 

their inspiration. At present let us investigate facts. The Lat- 
in Vulgate as used then contained them. Now, Rev. Sir, if 
it be made evident that those works were received universally 
and from the earliest day into the body of the Old Testament, 
your assertion that there is no remnant of any tradition, does not 
coincide with the fact. At what time were those works joined 
to the canonical works of the synagogue 1 All the works, ex- 
cept perhaps Wisdom and the second book of Maccabees, were 
originally written in Hebrew or Chaldaic ; as their frequent Semi- 
tic idioms evidently show. St. Jerome translated Tobias and 
Judith from the Chaldaic, and declares that he saw Ecclesiasticus 
and Maccabees in the original Hebrew. Baruch with the Epis- 
tle of Jeremiah bear the indelible impress of their Hebrew ori- 
gin. Origen declares emphatically that the parts of Esther and 
Daniel you reject were in the versions of the Septuagint and 
of Theodotion. We know that/Theodotion, whom St. Jerome 
^alls aJudaizing Heretic, translated from the Hebrew into Greek, 
md his version of Daniel containing those parts, is that anciently 
adopted by the Greek and Latin churches, and still followed en- 
tirely by the first, and in those parts by the latter. This clearly 
ascertained origin at once shows that the works were prior to 
the Saviour. If the Christians had written them afterward, 
which this general adoption forbids, they would have done it in 
Greek or Latin, their languages. The book of Wisdom and the 
second book of Maccabees are allowed by all sane critics to be 
incontestably anterior to the Saviour. The translation of the He- 
brew works into the Greek for the use of the Hellenist Jews, is also 
allowed to have taken place before the Saviour's time. Without 
attempting now to prove this at length in regard to every book, 
especially as you have not denied it, I will again content myself 
with referring to Walton, who declares that those works were 
first received by the Hellenist Jews, although it cannot be ascer- 
tained at what time they were joined in one volume with the 
Jewish canonical works; but that this much is certain, that the 
church received them with the rest of the Scripture from those 
Hellenist Jews. I said the transfer was made with the approba- 
tion of the Apostles, who in writing their inspired epistles had 
manifestly used those works. I will now prove it by the versions of 



APPENDIX. 409 

the Old Testament among the Christians. Taking the Septua- 
gint or Greek version alone, I cannot see what valid arguments 
can be adduced to prove that it did not contain those works in 
the beginning. Not the omission of them in copies, for the old- 
est entire manuscripts contain them. Not any testimony of some 
ancient writer, for as far as they bear witness it did, and, as I 
will show farther on, they quote those identical works. But 
there is another insurmountable objection to your opinion, and 
an irrefragable proof of my proposition. Two versions were 
made of the Scriptures immediately after the death of the Apos- 
tles, the Latin for the use of the Western Christians, from the 
Greek ; and the Syriac from the Hebrew and Greek, for those of 
the east. Both contain those works. 

We are informed that many versions or amended versions 
existed among the Latins, but that there was one called the vetus 
Itala vulgata, the ancient Italian, and commonly adopted one, 
the first of all and probably the groundwork of the others. As 
far back as manuscripts and notices of this version in writers 
will carry us, we find it containing those books. Blanchini has 
published part of it, but the work is not in Charleston. The 
book of Psalms, both books of the Maccabees, Wisdom and Ec- 
clesiasticus and the parts of Esther, as now used in the western 
church, are of this original version. 

The Peshito, or ancient simple Syriac version, contained 
those works. Walton has inserted in the fourth volume of his 
Polyglott the whole of them, except the portions of Esther ; and 
part at least of these has been since found. 

This version, made, as is allowed by all oriental scholars, if 
not in the first, at least in the beginning of the second century, 
a few years after the death of St. John, is taken from the He- 
brew and Greek. Theodotion, who translated passages of Daniel 
from the Hebrew, now lost in that language, executed his ver- 
sions at a later period than that assigned by the learned to the 
Syriac translation. At his day those parts existed in Hebrew. 
St. Jerome saw several of the other books you contest in He- 
brew or Chaldaic, and the word he uses, reperi, shows that copies 
of them were then extremely rare : they have since perished. 
Now in looking over the Syriac version of those works, you will 



410 APPENDIX. 

see that some are taken from the Hebrew, where probably it 
could be found, and others from the Greek, where the work was 
written originally in that language or the Hebrew might not 
probably have been at hand. The Syriac version of Tobias and 
Judith apparently follows the Septuagint; or possibly both may 
be directly translated from the original, which is now lost. The 
version of St. Jerome, also from the original, follows avowedly 
the sense, not the words of the Chaldaic or Hebrew, and cannot 
guide us in determining which. The portions of Esther in 
Syriac were not in the possession of Walton. They are found 
in the Septuagint and the Vulgate. I said, however, that part of 
them at least have since been discovered in the Syriac. In Wis- 
dom and Ecclesiasticus the Syriac agrees with the Septuagint, and 
appears to have been translated from it. On the contrary, Ba- 
ruch with the Epistle of Jeremiah appear to have been trans- 
lated into Syriac, not from the Greek of the Septuagint, but from 
the Hebrew original now no longer extant. So, too, the Peshito 
Syriac version of the contested parts of Daniel is taken, not from 
the Septuagint, but from the original Hebrew, whence Theodo- 
tion at a later period took them. There are many evidences of 
this. For example, in the History of Susannah, the Greek says 
that two ancients were appointed judges, while the Syriac has 
two priests. Now the original Hebrew word was undoubtedly 
cohenim, which signifies both priest, and prince, or ancient. The 
Syriac translator took the Hebrew word in one sense, and the 
Greek in another. This difference would not have happened, had 
the Syriac been taken simply from the Greek. On a comparison 
of the first and second books of Maccabees in the Greek and in 
the Syriac version, it will be evident, that the second book in 
Syriac is taken from the Greek, while it seems more probable 
that the first is from the kindred Hebrew. 

It appears, therefore, that immediately after the days of the 
Apostles, in the first or beginning of the second century, when, 
according to Walton, Wiseman, and the best scholars, the Syriac 
and Latin versions were made, the Christians did not think that 
no books were contained in their Old Testament, except those 
inserted by the Synagogue in the Jewish canon. Whether the 
whole Christian world could have united in embodying the books 



APPENDIX. 411 

you object to in their body of Scriptures, without some testimony 
from the Apostles to that effect, I leave you and my readers to 
judge. I believe, as I said, with Walton, that those books were 
united to the Jewish canonical books by the Hellenist Jews, be- 
fore the days of Christianity, and that they came already united 
into the church. The Apostles, as I showed in my last, allude 
to and incorporate passages and phrases from these works into 
their own writings. We have just seen that the early Septuagint 
and the two other versions made by Christians, in what you will 
allow were the purest and palmiest days of Christianity, contained 
them. Even were I to give, that these books were not united to 
the others before the time of Christ, this concession would but 
increase your difficulty, and display more strikingly the differ- 
ence between the Jewish and the Christian Old Testament, a 
difference which could only arise from the teaching of Christ 
and his Apostles. 

But, you may say, if this be so, the early Christian writers 
would quote those books. It is natural, Rev. Sir, that if they 
wrote much they should sometimes do so, and that, if their works 
be preserved in any quantity, we should find such quotations 
therein. And we do find them. 

We have a portion of the authentic writings of four Chris- 
tians before the year 100; St. Barnabas the Apostle's catholic 
Epistle; St. Polycap's Epistle to the Philippians; St. Ignatius's 
Epistles; and a considerable portion of St. Clement's first Epistle 
to the Corinthians, and a fragment of his second Epistle to the 
same. 

Now in this small collection, the earliest of the Christian 
writings, we have several quotations from those books. 

1. St. Barnabas, in § 6 of his Epistle, has the following 
passage : " But what saith the Prophet against Israel : Woe be 
to their soul, because they have taken wicked counsel against 
themselves, saying : Let us lay snares for the righteous, because 
he is unprofitable to us." This passage is composed of the two 
texts, Isaias iii. 9, " Woe to their soul, for evils are rendered 
to them," and Wisdom' ii. 12, " Let us therefore lie in wait for 
the just, because he is not for our turn." Here St. Barnabas 
quotes in the same sentence, and as of equal inspired authority, 



412 APPENDIX. 

the book of Isaias, contained in the canon of the Jews, and that 
of Wisdom, one of those you boldly declare to be of no more 
authority than Seneca's Letters or Tully's Offices. 

2. Towards the end of the same Epistle, the apostolical 
writer says : " Thou shalt not be forward to speak ; for the 
mouth is the snare of death. Strive with thy soul for all thy 
might. Reach not out thy hand to receive, and withhold it not, 
when thou shouldst give." What is this but a quotation of JEJc- 
clesiasticus (iv. 33, 34, 36), another of the books of your heathen 
category? " Strive for justice for thy soul, and even unto death 
fight for justice, and God will overthrow thy enemies for thee. 
Be not hasty in thy tongue : and slack and remiss in thy works. 
Let not thy hand he stretched out to receive, and shut when thou 
shouldst give" 

3. St. Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians comes next. In 
the tenth section he has the following passage : " When it is in 
your power to do good, defer it not, for charity delivereth from 
death. Be all of you subject to one another, having your conver- 
sations honest (or irreproachable) among the Gentiles." St. 
Polycarp, like St. Barnabas, quotes in the same breath an author 
whom you admit as inspired, and one whom you reject and con- 
demn Catholics for revering with him. " For alms delivereth 
from death." Tobias xii. 9. " Having your conversation good 
among the Gentiles." 1 Pet. ii. 12. 

There are one or two passages in the Fpistles of St. Ignatius 
which seem to me to imply quotations from the books in question. 
But as they are not so clear and striking, I omit them. I find 
too that several authors refer to a passage speaking of Daniel 
and Susannah. But as it is not in the copy before me, I con- 
sider it most probably one of the interpolations foisted into the 
saint's writings in after years. We will leave him then and take 
up the other writer. 

4. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, § 27, St. Clement, 
fourth bishop of Rome, has the following passage ; " Who shall 
say to Him, what dost thou ? or who shall resist the power of His 
strength ?" These words are taken from Wisdom xi. 52, and xli, 
12 : " For who shall say to thee, what hast thou done?" " And 
who shall resist the strength of thy arm V % 



APPENDIX. 413 

S. In § 55, he writes thus : " And even many women, being 
strengthened by the grace of God, have done many glorious and 
manly things. The blessed Judith, when her city was besieged, 
desired the elders that they would suffer her to go to the camp 
of the strangers ; and she went out, exposing herself to danger 
for the love she bore to her country and her people that were 
besieged. And the Lord delivered Holof ernes into the hands of 
a woman. Nor did Esther, being perfect in faith, expose herself 
to any less hazard for the delivery of the twelve tribes of Israel, 
in danger of being destroyed. For by fasting and humbling her- 
self, she intreated the great Maker of all things, the God of ages ; 
who, beholding the humility of her soul, delivered the people for 
whose sake she was in peril." The passage speaks for itself. I 
may say that the words marked in italics are extracted from the 
sublime canticle of Judith (xvi. 7). In his account of Esther, 
too, St. Clement evidently had in his mind, not only the passage 
in Hebrews iv. 16, v. 2, but the prayer of Esther (xiv.), one of 
those portions which you reject, with which every word he uses 
admirably tallies. 

I have been admonished not to encroach too much on the 
columns of the Miscellany, and must conclude here for the present. 

We have seen that the Old Testament, in the infancy of the 
church, and from one extremity of the Christian world to the 
other, whether in Syriac, in Greek, or in Latin, contained the 
books which the Catholic canon now contains, and which you 
would have us exclude. We have seen three out of the four 
first Christian writers quoting them unequivocally, precisely as 
they quote the other books of the Scripture — making no distinc- 
tion whatever. Add to this, if you please, the passages enumer- 
ated in my last letter, wherein the inspired writers of the New 
Testament have evidently used those works ; and then withdraw 
your thoughtless assertion that " the unbroken testimony of the 
Christian church is against their inspiration." 

I will in my next take up some Christian writers of the|Second 
century, and shall show that they also quoted those works as 
parts of the Scripture. Meanwhile, 

I remain, Rev. Sir, 

Yours, &c, 

A. P. F. 



414 



APPENDIX* 



COLLECTION OF THE PASSAGES IN WHICH DR. LYNCH HAS REPRESENTED 
THE FATHERS AS QUOTING THE APOCRYPHA. 

N. B. The first column gives the name of the author and the book ; the second, the pas- 
sages which are simply quoted or accommodated ; the third, those which are quoted with 
some mark of distinction, as Scripture, Divine Scripture, or under the name of a prophet ; 
the fourth gives merely allusions to the contents of the book, or assumes its history to be true. 

Some few passages may have been omitted, as the syllabus has been prepared in great 
haste. 



Name and Works of 


Apocryphal passages 


Those quoted as 




the Fathers. 


which are simply quo- 


Scripture, or Divine 


Allusions to Apocry. 




red. 


Scripture. 




JUSTIN MARTYR. 








1 Apol. § 44. 


Ecclus. xv. 14-18. 






IREN^EUS. 








Contra Haeres l.iv.c.37 


Wisdom vi. 20. 






" lib. v. c. 35. 


Baruch iv. 36 37. 






" lib. iv. c. 26. 


Daniel xiii. 56, 52, 53. 






" lib. iv. c. 5. 


u xiv. 3, 4,24. 






CLEMENS ALEX. 








Paedag. lib. i. c.7. 




Ecclus. xi. 7. i. 27, 28. 




" lib. i. c. 9. 


Ecclus. xxx. 8. 






" lib. ii.c.5. 




Ecclus. xxi 23. 




" lib. ii. c. 8. 




" xxxviii. 1. 




" lib. ii. c 8. 




u xxxix. 31. 




" lib.iii. c. 3. 




" xxv. 8. 




Stromat. lib. iv. 




Wisdom iii. 2-8. (as 
Divine Wisdom.) 




" lib. vi. 




Wisdom v. 2-5 (under 






name of Solomon.) 




" lib. vi. 




Wisdom iii. 14. as Sol. 




Paedag. lib. i. c. 10. 




Bar. iv. 4. iii. 4. as Jer. 




" lib. ii. c. 3. 




" iii. 16-19. 




Strom, lib. vi. 




Tobias xii. 8. 




TERTULLIAN. 








Monog. c. 17. 






Judith viii. 1. 


Praescrip. c.7. 




Wisdom i. 1. as Sol. 




Cont. Valent. c. 2. 




" i. 1. as Sol. 




De anima c. 15. 


Wisdom i. 6. 






De virg. vel. c. 13, 


" viii. 21, 






Cont marc. c. 5. 


Ecclus. xv. 18. 






De exhort, cast. c. 2. 




Ecclus. xv. 18. 




Scorpiaeum 





Bar. vi. 3, 4, 5. as Jer. 




De coron. milit. c. 4. 


Daniel xiii. 32. 






De Tdol. c. 18 






Daniel xiv. 


De Jejun. c. 9. 






" xiv. 32,38. 


Advs. Jud c. 4. 






1 Mal.ii.41. 


De praescrip. c. 13* 






2 Mai. ii. 28. 


CYPRIAN. 








Test, ad Q,uir. 1. iii. c.l 


Tobias ii. 2. iv: 6-12. 






" " 1. iii. c.7. 


" ii. 16. 






De Mortali c.7. 


" xii. 15. 1 







APPENDIX. 



41i 



Name and Works of 


Apocryphal passages 


Those quoted as 




the Fathers. 


which are simply quo- 


Scripture, or Divine 


Allusions to Apocry. 




ted. 


Scripture. 




CYPRIAN. 








De Orat. Dom. c. 21. 




Tobit. xii. 8. 




Pe Op. et Eleemos. c.4 


Tobit xii'. 8. 






Exhort. Mart. c. 12. 




Wisdom iii 4-8. 




De Mortal, c. 17. 




" iv. 11-14. 




Ad Df met. c. 13. 


Wisdom v. 1-8. 






De habit. Virg c. 7. 




" v. 8. 




Ad Rogat. 




" iii. 4-8. 




De Mortal, c. 5. 




Ecclus. ii. 1-4. 




De Op. et Eleemos. c.2 




" iii. 33. 




De Unit. Eccles. c. 19. 




" xxviii. 28. 




Ad Rogat. 




" vii. 31-33. 




De Laps. c. 19. 




Daniel xxv. 34. 




De Unit. Eccles. c. 11. 






Daniel iii. 49-50. 


De Orat Dom. c. 4. 




Daniel iii 51. 




Exhort, ad Mort. c. 11. 




" xiv. 4. 




De < >rat Dom. c. 14. 






" xiv. 


De Op. et Eleemos. c.8 






" xiv. 


Epist. 40. 






" xiii. 


Test, ad Q,uir. 1. ii. c.6. 




Bar. iii. 36U*38,'as Jer. 




De Orat. Dom. c. 2. 




" vi.5. 




Test, ad Gluir. 1. iii. c.4 


2 Mac. ix. 12. ii. 62, 63. 






" lib. iii. c. 17. 


2 Mac. vi. 30. vii. 9, 
14, 16, 17, 18, 19. 






" lib iii. c. 3. 


1 Mac. ii. 60. 






Exhort ad Mort. c. 12. 






2 Mac. vi. and vii. 


HTPPOLYTUS. 








Cont. Noe't. c. 2. 




Baruch iii. 36-38. 




DIO\YSIUS OF AL- 








EXANDRIA. 








Epist. ad Germ. 




Tobit xiii. 7. 




Cont. Paul. Samosat 




Wisdom i. 5, 6. 




APOST. CONSTI- 








TUTIONS. 








Lib. ii. c. 37,49,51. 






Daniel xiii. 


Lib. viii. c. 1. 






" xiv. 


Lib. vi. c. 19. 


Baruch iii. 36-38. 






Lib. vii. c. 23. 


" iv. 4. 






Lib. vi. c. 29. 


Wisdom iii. 1. 






Lib. iii. c. 7. 






Judith. 


Lib. v. c. 19. 






ci 


POPE SIRICIUS. 








Epist. ad Himmer. c. 7. 


Wisdom i. 4. 






JULIUS FJRMICUS 




Wisdom xv. 15-17 as 




MATERNUS. 




Solomon's. 
Baruch vi. 5-9. as Jer. 




u 




«' vi. 21, 25, 30, 

31, 64 ; 50, and 57. 




EPHREM, THE SY- 








RIAN. 








De Evers. superb. 


Daniel ix. 7. 







416 



APPENDIX. 



Name and Works of 


Apocryphal passages 


Those quoted as 






the Fathers. 


which are simply quo- 
ted. 

1 


Scripture, or Divine 
Scripture. 


Allusions to 


Apocry. 


EPHREM, THE SY- 










RIAN. 










De virtut. c. 3. 


Daniel iii. 40. 








De Humil. c. 9. 


" iii. 39. 








Parsens. 9. 


" iii. 50. 








De orat. 


" iii. 33. 








De paenit. c. 23. 






Daniel iii. 




Parsen. ad monegit, c. 
14, 11. 


Daniel xiii. 52. 








Epist. ad Joan. 






Daniel xiii. 




De muliere. 






" xiii. 




De Rect.viv. Nat. c.85 






" iv. 32- 


-36. 


De Patient. &c. 






" iv. 32— 3e 


In D Basylium. 


Tobit xii. 7. 








Serm. Cont. Jude. 


Baruchix.4&20.iii.38 








De Timore Dei. 




Wisdom iv. 12. 






De Certam. &c. c. 8. 




Wis. iv. 7,8. 9. v. 1—16 






Advs. Levit. 




" iii. 1, 6. 9. 






De Humil. c. 94. 




" ii.21,22. 






Paraen, 39. 


Wisdom vi. 9. 








Exhort 40. 


" i. 12. 








" 46. 




Wisdom xv. 12. 






De Patient. 




" v. 18—24. 


^ 




De virt. et. vit. c. 8. 




Ecclus. ii. 15. 






De i imore Dei. 


Ecclus. xxxii. 1. viii. 
6, 7. xxxi. 5. 


" xxv. 13 ii\ 
7. xviii. 30 and 31. 






cc 


Ecclus. vi. 18. 


Eccl.xi. 5. iv.7.vii.40. 






De Panop. &c. 




" vi. 30. 






De cast. 


Ecclus* Yv.*25, 26. 








Neerosima. can. 15. 






2d Mac. vi. 




Testamentum. 






" vi. 




BASIL THE GREAT 










Cont. Eunom. lib. 5, c. 

15, $ 2. 
Cont. Eunom. c.14, § 2. 


Wisd. i. 4. 










Wisdom i. 7. 






" c 2. 




Wis. ix. 1,2, as Sol. 






C( 


Wisdom i. 7. 








Epist. 8, $ 12, and 11. 




Wis. i. 4, 7. 






Horn. 12. 




M i. 4, as Solomon's 






" 14. 




" vi. 7. 






De Sane. Spir. c. 23, § 
54. 


Wisdom i. 7. 








Horn. 12, § 13. 


Daniel xiii. 50. 








Horn, in 40 mart. § 6. 


" iii. 40. 








Epist. 243, § 43. 


" iii. 38, 39. 








Cont. Unam. lib.2. § 19 


Esther xiv. 11. 








" " " 4.c. 3. 




Baruch iii. 32, as Jer. 






De Sane. Spir. c.8. § 19 


Judith ix. 4. 








Epist 6. 






2d Mac. viu 




Horn. Deut. c. 5, 9. 


Ecclus. ix. 20. 








Hexaem. Horn. 6, 910. 


,k xxvii. 12. 








Capit. Glues. 104. 




Ecclus. xxxii. 22. 






CHRYSOSTOM. 










Ad Viduam Jun. 




Ecclus. xviii. 26. xi. 5 






Horn, de Lat. 




" xix. 16. 






Serm. 8. Cont. Jude. 




" ii. 1—5. 






Serm. de Lat. 


Ecclus. ii. 1, 2. 








Exhort. 2 ad. Theod. 


" v. 8. 








Horn. 18. ad pop. anth 


" xiv. 2. 




1 





APPENDIX. 



417 



1 

Name and Works of Apocryphal passages 


Those quoted as 




the Fathers. 


which are simply quo- 


Scripture, or Divine 


Allusions to Apocry. 




ted. 


Scriptures. 




CHRYSOSTOM. 








De Fato. 




Ecclus. xv. 17 and 15. 




Horn. 15. ad pop. anth. 




Ec. i. 20. ix. 10, as Sol. 




Serm. 1 in Act. Apost. 




Ecclus. xvi. 3. 




De virginitat. c. 22. 


Wisdom v. 36. 






Serm. in Calendas. 


" iii. 1. 






Horn, in Gen. 11. 




Wisdom xiv. 3. 




Psalm 109. 




" xvi. 28. 




Horn, in Matt. 27. 




" vi. 7. 




Horn, in Ept. Heb. 7. 




" iv. 8, 9. 




Nous. Anom. 5. 




Baruch iii. 36, 37, 38. 




Cont. Jude et Gent. 




" iii. 36, 37, 38. 




Horn. 3. ad pop. anth. 


Esther xiv. 13. 






Horn. 60. in Joan. 






Judith mentioned. 


Horn. 13. in Epis. Heb. 




Tobit iv. 7. 




Horn. 9. do 




" iv. 11. 




Horn. 5. Nous. Anom. 


Daniel iii. 23. 






Cont. Jude et Gent. 


" iii. 38. 






Horn, in Pentecost, 1. 


" iii. 38. 






Horn. 15. in 1st Cor. 




Daniel xiii. 52. 




Horn. 18. do 


Daniel iii. 29, 30. 






Horn. 2. in Philem. 


" iii. 29, 30, 39, 
32. xiv. 37. 






AMBROSE. 








Hexaem. Lib. 4. c. 8. 




Ecclus. xxvi. 12. 




In Noach, &c. c. 35. 




il xxxii. 13. 




In Naboth. c. 8. 




" iv. 8-. 




Tract, de 42. 




" ii. 5. 




Psalm 118. 




Wisdom i. 6. 




Jacob, c. 8. 




Wis. iv. 8, 9. xiv. 7, 8. 




Joseph. 


Wis. ii. 12, as Sol. 




Psalm 43. 


Wis. vii. 7, do 




Hexaem. Lib. 3. c. 14* 




Baruch iv. 26. v. 27, as 
Jeremiah. 




In Tobit. 




Ba mcn iii. 24, 25. 




Cain et Abel, c. 9. 




" iii. 1. 




42 Mans. 




" iii. 29, 30. 




Hexaem. Lib.ii. c. 4. 




Dan. iii. 56, 68, 67, 74. 




De officii?. Lib. ii. c. 9. 






Ref to story of Susann. 


Joseph c. 5. 






ii ii 


Jacob. Lib. i. c. 8, 






Ref. to Bel and Dragon 


do Lib. ii. c. 9. 






a «( 


Elias, c. 9. Judith viii. 6. 






De officiis, c. 13 & 14. 




Ref. to Judith. 


Jacob. Lib. ii. c. 9. | 




2d Mac. 6 and 7 cap. 


De officiis, Lib. ii. e. 29 






« 3. 


PAULINAS OF 








NOLA. 








Exhort, ad celant. 




Eccl.iv.25— 28.x xvi ii. 
28, 29.-3 ch. 20 v. 




Epist. ad pamach. 37. 




Ec. xxxviii. 16. xvii. 18 




do 30. 




Ec. vii. 16. Wis. viii. 1 




do 32. 




Ec. xix. 15. 




do 39. 




Ec. v. 8. 




do 37. 




Wisdom iv. 7. Baruch 
;:; iq iq 





iii. 18, 19. 



fjl* The somewhat numerous errata noted below, are to be accounted for partly 
from the author's distant residence from the place of printing, which prevented 
him from revising the proofs ; but mainly, from the obscurity and incorrectness 
of the manuscript. They occur mostly in the Latin and Greek quotations in 
the Notes, many of which it was impossible to verify on the spot, and have sel- 
dom any important bearing on the sense. 

ERRATA, 

Page 12, last line in note, read Remonst. for Demonst. 

'' 21, fifth line of note, read super ea re for superare. 

" " first line of note, read discuterentur for discutiuntur. 

" " fourteenth line of note, dele facta 

u " " " " insert Sanctum after apud. 

" u seventeenth line of note, read expenderentur for experentur. 

M " twenty-eighth line of note read detested for detected. 

" 40, first line of note read A. P. F„ for A. P. P. 

'* 41, Note, for Westminster Conf. chap. i. 55, read chap. i. § 5. 

u 44, first line of note, for avrairotyaivsOai read. avrairocpaiveaOai. 

" 55, fifth line of note, read tout for tous. 

u c * eighth line of note, read constitue for constitute. 

M " tenth line of note, read, appartient exclusivement for appartiens ezdusivemem. 

" " thirteenth line of note, read maniere par for maniere pas. 

" " fourteenth line of note, read elle for cette. 

" " fifteenth line of note, read dans for sans. 

11 " twenty-sixth line of note, read cet for ses. 

" ll thirtieth line of note, read n'en for y en. 

11 li thirty-second lint of note, read primauie for primante* 

11 " fourth line from bottom, read celle-ci for celle ce. 

u " " " " read rejeter for rejiter. 

" " third line from bottom, insert nier after sans. 

" " second line from bottom, read qui for que. 

" 63, line 22, dele the last word, their. 

" . 95, second note, thirteenth line from bottom, read gratia for gratia. 

" " twelfth line from bottom, read voluerunt for voluerant. 

" " sixth line from bottom, read omnis for omsis. 

" 96, fourth line, read dialectics for dialects. 

" 118, first Latin note at star, read aliquid for allquid. 

^ 124, seventh line of note, read ayvoovvres for ayvovvres. 

* ' u ;t '* *' KarayyeWo^ev for Karaye'Xousv. 

" " eighth line, read rs^eicoaeig for rsXeicoaag. 

u " fourteenth line, read est eucharistiu for et eucharistia. 

" " eighth line from bottom, read dubitarunt for dubitant. « 

" superstitionum for supersitionem. 

" " " " " epoptis for epoptes. 

" cc seventh line from bottom, read eum for sum. 

" " third line from bottom, read deitati for deitate. 

?' 125, second line of note, read mysteriis for mysteries. 

'* " seventeenth line of note, read arcana for arcano. 

" " twenty-second line of note, read se for es. 

" 130, the first note there should have embraced the one which follows the extract from 
Calvin's Institutes on page 131, beginning, "The Apostles are addressed," &c. 

" 133, note, sixth line from bottom, tbere should be quotation marks after the word Bish- 
ops, thus, bishops," and the next sentence should begin a paragraph. 

u 134, the star in the text should be a section, as it does not correspond to the note. 

" 145, note at star, dele to effort. 

i( 146, note, eighth line from bottom, read reddidit for reddidat. 

" " last line, read pr&stiterint for prcestitirent. 

" 147, second line of note, read vero for viro. 

" " note at star, first word, for assequitur read assequetur. 

" " same note, last word, for potestatis, read potestates. 

149 that no';e exhibits the opinions of Aquinas, iEgidiua and Cajetan, as given by 
Bellarmin. 

152, note, third line, read imperator for imperatur, and put a comma between it and the 

preceding word. 
" note, seventh line, read fieri permiserint for geri permiscerint. 
" " leaidfeudalia for fudalia. 
|| " note, thirteenth line, read suaserint for suasderint 

153, note at star, second line, read detinentes for destinentes. 

" " " read fidelitatis for fidelitates.. 

J third line, read servus for servius. 

| " fourth line, read cadit for cadat. 

154, note, first line, read Presbyterum, for Presbyterium. 



D 



ERRATA. 

P$ge 154, third line, read crimine for cnmina. 

" 180, note, third line from bottom, read Kemnitium for Remnitium. 

" 188, note, twelfth line, read recipiendos, for recipiendo. 

" 223, note beginning Ecclesiasticus, fill the blank with aytovtcat. 

" 252, note, first line, read exscribentes, for enscribentes. 

" 259, Greek note, fourth line, read kouucotikhs for KOfiuururis. 

4< " " " " read £kto<; for kyjtos . 

" " fifth line, read ay%ouevov for aX^oaevov. 

" " {i read Pmotikov for pporixuv. 

" " sixth line, read ^? f or res, and Trpo<pr)Tr]S for irpofrjreg. 

" " seventh line, read aaaroj for aaaeai. 

" 262, note, first line, read rou for £crt. 

" " text, fourteenth line, last word, read were for we. 

li " note, second line from bottom, read priore for prior a. 

11 26^, last note, read sancto for sancte. 

" 274, Greek note, first line, read ov for op. 

u 275, note eighth lme, read omnino for oranino. 

" 282, last note third line, read Kemnitius for Kenilius, and last line but one, censuerit 
for consuerit. 

" 283, note, fourth line, read exfama for exeama. 

" 234, third note, second line, read rov for rot. 

" iC fourth note, first line, read Origines for origines. 

" 255, note, second line, read accemset for accensit. 

*' " fourteenth line, read Lindanus dubitantis for Lindamus dubitantes. 
81 " fifteenth line, read definientis for defi?iientes, and in the same note there should be 
only a comma at 47. 

" 2^7, note, first line, read legatur for legitur. 

" 289, note second, second line, read prcefatione for presationc. 

11 " last note, first line, read Carthaginiense for Carthagincnsi. 

" K fourth line, read intelligetis for intelligeris. 

" " seventh line, insert 2 before Esdrce and a period after, and read Hebrcei for Hebrari. 

<{ " tenth line, read altius for alius. 

" 290, note, first line, insert Mi before primum. 

u " fourth line, insert 2 before paralipomenon, and read impe? itiam for imperitatem. 

" " seventeenth line, read animadverso fur animadverto. 

11 " nineteenth line, read Hezrm for Hera. 

" t{ twenty-second line, read opinionem for opinione. 

" " twenty-third line, after Bibliis insert regiis habeater Tertii Esdrae Graece ; ne in 

Germanicis quidem Bibliis. 
" " twenty-seventh line, read debetis for deletis. 
" " twenty-eighth line : read aZias for aZios. 
11 *' last line, read ei <?u<e for ac owi, and for ex read en. 

" 291, twenty-first line, read interpretati for interpretate. 
11 " twenty-third line, read ^ires for vires. 
" " twenty-eighth line, read novam for noram. 
" " twenty-ninth line, read quidem for decidem. 

" " last line, insert nwrcc before novam, and read authore for aw£ /tore. 

u 292, note, first line, read prccsideo for prcofideo. 
t; " third line, read translationem for translations 
11 " eleventh line, read nostros for nostras. 

" " twenty-second line, read facillime for facimile, also simili for simtli. 
" " twenty-fifth line, read Carthaginiense for Carthaginensi. 

u 294, note, eighth line, read ordini for ordine. 
<s " eleventh line, period at terminatam. 
M M seventh line from bottom, dele ^wi connexi subimet. 

" 295, note, second line, read prophetaverunt for propherareunt. 

" 296, first note, last line, put a colon at christianus. 
" " second note, first line, read scriniaria for seriniaria. 

" 299, note at star, fifth line, read sire for sine. 
" " note at dagger, third line, read duntaxai for dmn Zaza£. 

" 311, note, first line, read rj^icoaas for £|/coo-aj. 
" " fifth line, read cor for <roi/. 
" " seventh line, read avaro\rjv for evaro\riv. 
" " twelfth line, read ex\oyas for ex\ayu<;. 
" " last line, read s| for £x. 

" 317, note, first line, read *pa\uov for ipa^fiOiv. 






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